The Argosy — page 320: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

By the Vulture’s Nest. 295 tended to carry out their quarrel at some more appropriate moment. The girl returned quickly into the chalet, put out the light, and came back in an instant, with a long cloak thrown over her shoulders. Then she locked the doors of both chalet and stables, and walking up to the gentlemen, resumed, ina decided tone: *T’m going down with you. If I let you go alone, there would be bloodshed before you got home. Don’t tell me to turn back, Mr. Graham, for when I have made up my mind to anything, no power on earth can change me. ‘The walk will do me good.” The three walked over plateaux and through forests, down steep hills and over small springs, in dead silence for an hour at least. When the lighted windows of the Castle at last became visible, Louise said resolutely: “‘I am going to my father’s house, and there someone will return with me. But I am not going to leave you yet,” she added, as Graham stopped at the bottom of the broad flight of steps that led up to the entrance hall of the castle, and ex- tended a hand to her. She ran hastily up them, and greeted one of the servants in the hall. ‘Good evening, Hans,” she said. “I have brought you back two of your gentlemen who had lost their way in the night. Run and tell the Herr Graf that they are here.” The servant knew that his master was anxious about the Chevalier, and did as he was bid. The girl once more thanked Graham for the great service he had rendered her, turned, and was out of sight in a moment. | The party of gentlemen spent another half-hour together in the hall, before the host announced that it was time for bed, if the hun- ters intended to be at their several posts in time in the morning. The Frenchman knew how to put aside for the moment his recent discomfiture, and when he was offered this time the coveted place by the Vulture’s Nest, he accepted it enthusiastically, and even cast a look of triumph upon Graham. The two then separated, and did not meet again that night. The next morning Graham found only his host and two of the guests in the breakfast-room. ‘The others, with the Frenchman among them, had left much earlier, as their posts were more distant. <A rendezvous had been agreed upon, at which all were to meet in the afternoon, when the hunt was over. Graham left the Castle with the Count and two of the foresters, besides a servant who carried provisions for the day. Graham and his host leisurely ascended the mountain, and, catching frequent glimpses of the beautifully green valleys below them, reached after a time a considerable height. Leaving the beaten track which had hitherto been their path on comparatively easy ground, a moment’s respite was now necessary to make ready the trusty rifles, which had from this moment to be ever at hand, and might at any instant be called into play. The Count himself, acquainted with every turn and stone of those EONNIE OOS (E(©) m