Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1918-11-07

an. IL was n sound OF laughter.
But such an awful laugh! A strid-
ent laugh, evil as the laughter of
a devil, and so shrill! 1t was
more like the laugh of a woman,
Of a mad woman.
Again silence. Then another
noise, the noise of an implement
striking the ground, then silence
again.
And this was happening at a
distance which Don Luis esti-
mated at a hundred yards.
The path ended in three steps
cut in the earth. At the top was
a fairly large plateau, also encum-
bered with rubbish and ruins. In
the center, opposite Don Luis,
stood a rec of immense laurels
planted in a semicircle. The marks
OF trodden grass led up to it..
Don Luis was a little surprised,
for the screen presented an inn
p%enetrable outline. He walked on
and found that there had once
been q cutting, and that the
branches had ended by meeting
again. They We're easy to push
aside; and it was through here
that the scoundrel must have
passed. To all appearances he
was there now, IT the end of his
journey, not far away, occupied
in some sinister task.
Indeed the air was rent by a
chuckle, so close by that Don Luis
gave a start and felt as if the
scoundrel We're laughing before
hand, at his intervention. He re-
membered the letter with the
words written in red ink:
"There s still time, Lupin. Re-
tire from the contest. If not, it
means your death, too. When you
think that your object is attained,
when your hand is raised against
me and you utter words oil tri-
umph, at the same moment the
ground will open beneath your
feet. The place Of your death is
chosen. The snare is laid. Be-
ware, Lupin.
The whole letter passed
through his brain, with it's for
midable threat. And he felt a
shiver of fear. But no fear could
stay the man that he was. He had
already taken hold Of the
branches with his hands and was
clearing a way for himself.
He stopped. A last bulwark of
leaves hid him from sight. He
pulled some of them aside at the
level of his eyes.
And he saw 4.
First of all, he saw Florence,
alone at this moment, lying on
the ground, bound, at thirty
yards in front of him and he at
once perceived, to his intense de-
light, from certain movements of
her head that she was still alive.
He had come in time. Florence
was not dead. She would not die.
That was a certainty against
which nothing could prevail. Flor
ence would not die.
Then he examined the things
around. To the right and left
of where he stood the screen of
laurels curved and embraced a
sort of arena in which, among
yews that had once been clipped,
into cones, lay capitals, columns,
broken pieces of arches and
vaults, obviously placed there to-
adorn the formal garden that had
been laid out on the ruins Of the
ancient donjon-keep.
In the middle was a small cir
cular space reached by two mar
row paths, one of which presented
the same traces of trodden grass
and was a continuation of that by
which Don Luis had come, while
the other ~intersected tie first at
right angles and joined the two
ends Of the screen of shrubs.
opposite was q confused heap
of broken stones and natural
rocks, cemented with clay, bound
together by the roots of gnarled
trees, the whole forming at the
back of the picture a small, chal-
low grotto, full Of crevices that
admitted the light. The floor,
which Don Luis could easily dis.