Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/216

206 have n't got any right to keep it to ourselves. Nobody 's ever thought of owning Black Ledge. I guess my line comes up higher 'n anybody's but I 'm a good way down yonder; this is the town's property up here."

Eagerly, silently, with an undercurrent of consciousness that we were coming very close to some strange secret of nature, we gathered up the crystals. There were many of great beauty, but none so fine as the first-found one, Ally's "Stonie." Many of them were broken; some looked as if they had crumbled slowly into fragments; but all were transparent, brilliant, and of colors of ineffable beauty,—dark green, light green, pink, yellow, blue, rose-red and white.

It seemed utterly incredible that such treasures could long have been lying exposed on this hill-top. "I don't suppose there are many villages where it could have happened," said Dr. Miller, "but there is n't a man or woman in this town that would ever think of walking a rod for pleasure, except me, and I 'm too busy always to get so far from home 's this. I suppose I 've looked up at this Black Ledge a hundred times and resolved to come up here at sunset some night, but I never have. I guess I 'm glad I did n't. It 's worth a good deal more to come on it this way, with you boys along, and that Ally down below waiting."

"Oh, what will she say? What will she say?" exclaimed I.