Page:The Whisper on the Stair by Lyon Mearson (1924).djvu/301

 He laughed. “Nerves getting jumpy again,” he remarked. “But I guess we’ve left him behind this time for fair.”

“Him,” of course, referred to Teck, and the very allusion to the man caused a slight damper to fall on the party. They pushed on in silence after that for a few minutes.

Finally they reached the foot of the hill. From where they stood it appeared to Val that the hill was much bigger than he had thought it from a distance. It was not very high, but it spread over a great deal of territory, and it was so heavily wooded that it seemed almost impenetrable. Plainly, one would have to know his way about, on this hill, to get anywhere.

“From now on I’d better lead,” said Jessica, coming to the front. “I know just how to get to it.”

They followed her in single file through a tiny footpath that she led them to unerringly, winding away up the hillside, around and through the trees, skirting great bowlders that suddenly blocked the path, and in one place hugging the side of the hill seventy-five feet above the solid earth, a little path only two feet wide.

“I say,” protested Val, “this wasn’t built for a man of my displacement. Parts of me hang over, you know.”

Jessica looked back at him, laughing. “Well, don’t lose your nerve, anyway.”

They hugged the wall until they came around the next curve, where the path broadened out again. Val and the two behind him breathed a sigh of relief. As for Jessica, the peril of the passage had not seemed to affect her in the least. She had not gone that way for years, but it had come back to her instantly, and