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26 should love to go; I'm in the mood for blackberrying. And I know where there are some big, juicy, dead-ripe ones."

An hour later, the bucket well filled, Ann crawled through an opening in the fence that divided Wilson's lot from the roadway, and sat down on a big stone to rest. Just across the road was another large stone, similar to the one upon which she was sitting, except that it rested perpendicularly, its broad, flat surface being at the side instead of on top. The two were called the "halfway" stones, because they equally divided the distance between the town on the west and the bluff on the east. But the stone opposite Ann was different in still another particular, for a rude but unmistakable likeness of the great Egyptian Sphinx was cut into the side toward the road, while a curious ribbon-like band, which seemed to spring from the head of the sphinx, ran downward on the right of the picture until, doubling on itself, it waved irregularly across the stone and came to an end at the upper right-hand corner. Beneath this band, just before it ended at the edge of the stone, two minute arrows were engraved, one after the other, pointing outward.

Ann recalled the excitement, now nearly a year ago, that had attended the making of this picture. One hot afternoon, Mr. Pool, an artist who had spent several summers in the neighborhood, placed his camp chair in front of the stone (then as smooth as its mate across the way), impaled the handle of his big red umbrella in the earth beside it, and began to cut into the hard surface with steel instruments. This routine was repeated many afternoons, until curious onlookers assembled at his back, making remarks and asking questions. And though he worked in silence for the most part, the few answers he vouchsafed to the eager questioners were strictly to the point. He was chiselling a picture of the Sphinx; he worked in the afternoon, rather than in the morning when the particular spot where he sat was shaded from the sun, because the light in the afternoon was better suited to his purpose; and his reasons for cutting a picture on a stone at the roadside, rather than in a studio where he could be comfortable, concerned nobody but himself—unless, indeed, some person chose to make it his especial business.

All of which mystified the questioners more than ever, as per-