ngton basked in the midnight like some sleeping village of the
plains, stretching out to the fields of cattle and the savory truck
farms.

Duff Salter mentally exclaimed:

"Here, like two angels of good or evil, we spy upon the dull old hamlet,
where nothing greater has happened than to-night since the Indians
bartered their lands away for things of immediate enjoyment. Are not
most of these people Indians still, ready to trade away substantial
lands of antique title for the playthings of a few brief hours? Yes,
heaven itself was signed away by man and woman for the juices of one
forbidden fruit. Here, where the good old pastor, like another William
Penn, is running his stakes beyond the stars and peopling with angels
his possessions there, the savage children are occupied with the trifles
of lust, covetousness, and deceit. They are no worse than the sons of
Penn, who became apostates to his charity and religion before the breath
had left his body. So goes the human race, whether around the Tree of
Knowledge or Kensington's Treaty Tree."

Duff Salter felt his arm pulled violently, and heard his companion
whisper,

"There! Do you see it?"

Across the street, only a few hundred feet distant, an object emerged
from the black mass of the buildings and moved rapidly along the
opposite ridge of houses against the sky, drawing nearer the two
watchers as it advanced, and passing right opposite.

Duff Salter made it out to be a woman or a figure in a gown.

It looked neither to the right nor left, and did not stoop nor cower,
but strode boldly as if with right to the large residence of the Zanes,
where in a minute it faded away.

Duff Salter felt a little superstitious, but Calvin Van de Lear shot
past him down the ladder.

Duff heard the curtain at the window thrown up as the divinity student
flashed his lamp and saw the door of the house whence the apparition had
come, forced by the police.

As he descended the ladder Calvin Van de Lear extended Duff's hat to
him, and pointed across the way.

They were not very prompt reaching the door of the Zane residence, but
were still there in time to employ Duff Salter's key, instead of
violence, to make the entry.

"Gentlemen," said the deaf man, with authority, "there is no occasion of
any of you pressing in here to alarm a lady. Mr. Van de Lear and myself
will make the search of the house which you have already guarded,
front, back, and above, and rendered it impossibl