niggers, all in this one gang and livin’ in back of a long mountain wall with only one way into it. Outlaws? Yessir, and worse’n that. Land pirates, I’d call ’em. Cut your throat and never even wipe off the knife afterward.

“Well, sir, they’d come out of this here hole-in-the-wall I’m tellin’ about, and they’d waylay folks drivin’ along the roads, the rich folks in coaches and so on. And they’d kill the men travelers and strip ’em clean. And they’d carry off the women and hold ’em for ransom. And if the ransom wasn’t paid the women never got out. They had to stay there and be the women of that gang. If they were extry good-lookin’ maybe they never got a chance to be ransomed. More’n one fine lady went into that hole in the hills[41] and never was heard of again. Yessir. That’s right.

[41]

“Oh, yes, it was a long while ago. Good many years before our time. After the Revolution, maybe—it was pretty rough in lots of places round here then, and these fellers could fight off a whole army by guardin’ that gap of theirs. What ever become of ’em I don’t know. But the descendants of that gang and the women prisoners are livin’ there yet—outlaw white blood and high-toned white blood and nigger and Indian blood all mixed up together—and I’ve heard tell that some of ’em are handsome, especially the women. No, I never was in there myself——”

The memory-voice died and was lost. Vainly he racked his brain for more of the tale. Where did that man say the place was? In these Shawangunks? Farther south in the Ramapos? Up north in the Catskills, or far beyond in the Adirondacks? No answer came. The rest of the story, its beginning and end, were lost in the fog of many such chance conversations at odd moments and in odd places.

But he was sure that the locale of that legend was somewhere in the mountains of New York State. And out there across the Traps was a long mountain wall with but one way of entrance. And this girl’s father and mother were of mongrel blood, and——

“By the Lord Harry, it fits!” he exclaimed aloud. “If this isn’t the place it ought to be. And there’s been a lady—a real, high-bred lady—in your family not many generations ago, Miss Marion, or I’m a Chinaman!”

[42]The surrounding rocks reverberated with his words. The blanket before him moved quickly. Out from it rose dancing gray eyes, glowing cheeks, and laughing red lips.

[42]

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