Sunny Slopes Part 20

"Honestly?"

"Yes, honestly."

"I knew a woman in Chicago," said Miss Landbury, "and she said the night before her mother died she lay down on the cot to rest, and a white shadow came and hovered over the bed, and she saw in it, like a dream, all the details of her mother's death just as it happened the very next day. She swore it was true."

"Don't talk any more about white shadows," said Carol. "They make me nervous."

"Wouldn't it be ghastly to wake up alone in a little wind-blown canvas tent in the dead of night, and find it shut off from the world by a white shadow, and hear a low voice whisper, 'Come,' and feel yourself drawn slowly into the shadow by invisible clammy fingers--"

"Don't," cried Miss Landbury.

"That's not nice," said Carol.

"Don't scare the girls, Barrows. Carol will sleep under the bed to-night."

"I am with the girls myself," said Gooding. "There isn't any sense getting yourself all worked up talking about spirits and ghosts and things that never happened in the world."

"Oh, they didn't, didn't they? Just the same, when you reach out for a cough-drop and get hold of a bunch of clinging fingers that aren't yours, and are not connected with anybody that belongs there,--well, I for one don't take any chances with ghosts."

A sudden brisk tap on the door drew a startled movement from the men and a frightened cry from the girls. The door opened and the head nurse stood before them.

"Ten-fifteen," she said curtly. "Please go to your cottages at once.

Mr. Duke, why don't you send your company home at ten o'clock?"

"Bad manners. Ministers need hospitality more than religion nowadays, they tell us."

"Oh, Miss David," cried Miss Tucker, "won't you go out to my tent with me? I feel so nervous to-night."

"What is the matter?" asked the nurse suspiciously, looking from one to another of the flushed faces and noting the restless hands and the fearful eyes.

"Nothing, nothing at all, but my head aches and I feel lonesome."

The nurse contracted her lips curiously. "Of course I will go," she said.

"Let me come too," said Miss Landbury, rising with alacrity. "I have a headache myself."

Huddled together in an anxious group they set forth, and the nurse, like a good shepherd, led her little flock to shelter. But as she walked back to her room, her brows were knitted curiously.

"What in the world were the silly things talking about?" she wondered.

"David Duke," Carol was informing her husband, as she stood over him, in negligee ready to "hop in," "I shall let the light burn all night, or I shall sleep in the cot with you. I won't run any risk of white shadows sitting on me in the dark."

"Why, Carol--"

"Take your pick, my boy," she interrupted briskly. "The light burns, or I sleep with you."

"This cot is hardly big enough for one," he argued. "And neither of us can sleep with that bright light burning."

"David," she wailed, "I have looked under the bed three times already, but I know something will get me between the electric switch and the bed."

David laughed at her, but said obligingly, "Well, jump in and cover up your head with a pillow, and get yourself settled, and I will turn off the lights myself."

"It is a sin and a shame and I am a selfish little coward," Carol condemned herself, but just the same she was glad to avail herself of the privilege.

A little later the white colony on the mesa was in darkness. But Carol could not sleep. The blankets over her head lent a semblance of protection, but most distracting visions came to her wide and burning eyes.

"Are you asleep, David?" she would call at frequent intervals, and David's "Yes, sound asleep," gave her momentary comfort.

But finally he was awakened from a light sleep by a soft pressure against his foot. Even David started nervously, and "Ghosts" flashed into his logical and well-ordered brain. But no, it was only the soft and shivering form of his wife, curling herself noiselessly into a ball on the foot of his cot. David watched her, shaking with silent laughter. Surrept.i.tiously she slipped an arm beneath his feet, and circled them in a deadly grip. If the ghosts got her, they would get David's feet, and in her girlish mind ran a half acknowledged belief that the Lord wouldn't let the ghosts get as good a man as David.

Wretchedly uncomfortable as to position, but blissfully a.s.sured in her mind, she fell into a doze, from which she was brought violently by a low whisper in the room:

"Mrs. Duke."

"Oooooooo," moaned Carol, diving deep beneath the covers.

David sat up quickly.

"Who is there?"

"It is I, Miss Landbury," came a frightened whisper. "Can't I stay with you a while? I can't go to sleep to save me,--and honestly, I am scared to death."

This brought Carol forth, and with warm and sympathetic hospitality she turned back the covers at the foot of the bed and said:

"Yes, come right in."

David nudged her remindingly with his foot. "Since there are two of you to protect each other," he said, laughing, "suppose you go in to Carol's bed, and leave me my cot in peace."

This Carol flatly refused to do. If Miss Landbury was willing to share the foot of David's cot, she was more than welcome. But if she meant to stand on ceremony and go into that awful big black room without a minister, she could go by herself, that was all. Carol lay down decidedly, and considered the subject closed.

"I don't want to sleep," said Miss Landbury unhappily. "I am not sleepy. I just want a place to sit, where I--I won't keep seeing things."

"Turn on the light, Carol," said David. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, both of you."

"That's all right," defended Carol. "You are a preacher, and ghosts don't bother--"

"Don't say ghosts," chattered Miss Landbury.

"Well, what is the plan of procedure?" inquired David patiently. "Are you going to turn my cot into a boarding-house? You girls stay here, and I will go in to Carol's bed. Give me my bath robe, honey, and--"

"Oh, please," gasped Miss Landbury.

"And leave us on this porch with nothing but screen around us?"

exclaimed Carol. "I am surprised at you, David."

David turned his face to the wall. "Well, make yourselves comfortable.

Good night, girls."

The girls stared at each other in the darkness, helplessly, resignedly.