Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/37

 shadowy procession the pomp and pageantry of the past. As the others came up, I said,—

“We have a real treasure here!”

“It looks it,” said one.

“I find it is an enchanted mirror; it possesses magical properties, and if one stood here at just the right hour she would see crossing its dim surface the shades of all the dead and gone revellers this old room has ever known.”

“Do you reckon, if a fellow should come up here about the witching hour of twelve in the dark of the moon, with a rabbit’s foot in each hand—”

“Hush, foolish scoffer! even now they come—”

“Well, they’re in a mighty big hurry. You tell ’em we ain’t fixed up at all; that we are sleeping on the floor, and—”

“Behold, a great, swarthy, athletic young mountaineer, tall and straight as his native pines—”

“Gee whiz! Must be a hundred feet high!”

“Don’t interrupt, please; remember, there were giants in those days. They quickly pass. But what strange figures are these stealthily gliding through the gray shadows?”

“Injins, I’ll bet you! Are they togged up in fringed buckskin and moccasins, with a lot of danglin’ beads and feather fixin’s?”

“Alas! Shocked by your skepticism, they recede. Ah! they are gone!”