Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/188

170 its direction and he made his way uncertainly towards it. She saw him outlined against the dying light, his fingers making sure of the exit. Then he blocked it.

"Come down," he cried again. "Curse you for a jade, speak up!" His voice faltered, whimpered like a child in the dark. Even if she obeyed him, unless he was guided by the sound of her voice he could not find her. So she prayed and believed. Bound as her ankles were, she could not do more than wriggle from the niche to the floor and this she determined not to do. Her silence and his own impotence drove him to wild fury and he snatched out his gun.

"Think you've got the best of me, do you?" he yelled and fired, to right, to left. The spurts of fire stabbed the dusk, the bullets spent themselves against the walls. One entered the hollow where she flattened and she felt it drop, its energy baffled, upon her body. The narrow rift was filled with the acrid gases of the exploded powder. That mingled with a musty odor and, down from the top of the cave, fluttered a mass of bats, making for the entrance, flapping about Hollister, clinging to him like moths to a sweetened tree. He fought them off in a panic and, as they crowded down, fled from the cave.

She heard him stumble down the slope, thought that he fell, heard him cursing as he seemed to be trying to find his way back, and prayed that he might not do so. Nor did he, but shuffled off, direction lost.