Page:The Cross Pull.pdf/120

 She regained her self-control and felt better for having relieved the nervous tension of the last few days. Flash’s mood changed with hers. He too felt better.

The steady downpour slackened to a drizzle. Heavy gray clouds scudded past, obscuring the hills beyond and the valley below. This in turn changed swiftly to a dense fog—one of the milk-white mountain fogs in which even seasoned hill men hesitate to travel when in a strange country.

As the girl started for home the tree trunks loomed vaguely a few feet away. For all she could see of it it might have been a forest of stumps, the trunks being invisible at a height of twenty feet.

Flash kept a pace before her, heading unerringly for home, and she followed him unconsciously, thinking that she chose the route herself.

The fog seemed to deepen and turn to purple instead of white. With a thrill of apprehension she realized that night was settling down over the hills. Before she reached the foot of the slope night had completed the swift transformation of the fog from milky white to oozy black which shut her in until she was unable to see two feet ahead.