J. W.

Her breath came fast as she read, and crunched the paper into the palm of her hand.  She understood, and felt no hesitancy.  Westcott had made discoveries so important he must communicate them at once and there was no other way.  He dare not come to her openly at that hour.  Well, she was not afraid—­not of Jim Westcott.  Even in her hurry she was dimly conscious of the utter, complete confidence she felt in the man; even of the strange interest he had inspired.  She paused in her hasty dressing, wondering at herself, dimly aware that a new feeling partly actuated her desire to meet the man again—­a feeling thoroughly alien to the Cavendish mystery.  She glanced into the cracked mirror and laughed, half ashamed at her eagerness, yet utterly unable to suppress the quickened beat of her pulse.

She was ready almost in a minute, and had blown out the lamp.  Again she ventured a glance out into the street below, but the skulking figure had disappeared, no one lurked anywhere in the gloom.  There was not a sound to disturb the night.  She almost held her breath as she opened the door silently and crept out into the hall.  Stella possessed no knowledge of any back stairway, but the dim light enabled her to advance in comparative quiet.

Once a board creaked slightly, even under her light tread, and she paused, listening intently.  She could distinguish the sound of heavy sleepers, but no movement to cause alarm, and, assured of this, crept forward.  The hall turned sharply to the right, narrowing and becoming dark as the rays of light failed to negotiate the corner.  Twenty feet down this passage ended in a door.  This was unlocked, and yielded easily to the grasp of her hand.  It opened upon a narrow platform, and she ventured forth.  Gripping the hand-rail she descended slowly into the darkness below, the excitement of the adventure causing her heart to beat like a trip-hammer.

At the bottom she was in a gloom almost impenetrable, but her feet felt a cinder path and against the slightly lighter sky her eyes managed to distinguish the gaunt limbs of a tree not far distant, the only one visible and doubtless the cottonwood referred to in the note.

Shrinking there in the black shadow of the building she realised suddenly the terror of her position—­the intense loneliness; the silence seemed to smite her.  There occurred to her mind the wild, rough nature of the camp, the drunkenness of the night before; the wide contrast between that other scene of debauchery and this solitude of silence leaving her almost unnerved.  She endeavoured to recall her surroundings, how the land lay here at the rear of the hotel.  She could see only a few shapeless outlines of scattered buildings, not enough to determine what they were like.  She had passed along that way toward the bridge that afternoon, yet now she could remember little, except piles of discarded tin cans, a few scattered tents, and a cattle corral on the summit of the ridge.