Page:Post--Dwellers in the hills.djvu/251

Rh "We have got it," said I, putting my hand in my breeches pocket and drawing forth the letter. I stood deep in the oak leaves of the horses' bedding. The light of the candle squeezing through the dirty glass sides brought every log of the old stable into shadow.

Jud came out of El Mahdi's stall like something out of a hole. He wore a rubber coat that had gone many years about the world, up and down, and finally passed in its decay to Roy.

"You 've got that letter?" he said.

I told him that I had the very letter, that it had got wet in the river; I had dried it in the sun, and here it was.

"How did you get it?" he asked.

I told him all the conversation with Marsh, and how I was to give it to Cynthia and the message that went along with it.

The two men came over to me and took the lantern and the letter from my hands, Jud holding the light and Ump turning the envelope around in his fingers, peering curiously. They might have been some guardians of a