her and that the bridge had put them up to
it. She was dizzy and had to put her hand on the rock to steady herself.
The lantern light was extinguished but she did not remember the lantern,
or Wiggle. She felt very strange and wanted a drink of water. Her hand
trembled and her little arm with which she braced herself against the
rock, felt weak. And her head throbbed, throbbed. ...

Where were all those people? She felt around for them. Then she heard
the voice again, far off through the woods, up along that highway. It
was just an innocent automobile,

"You have to go back."

Pepsy rose to her feet with a start, reeled, reached for a tree, and
clutched it. "I'll stop it, I'll--I'll make it--it stop--I'll tear
it--I'll pull them off," she said. "I--I won't--go back--I won't, I
won't, I won't!"

Staggering across the road she entered the woods. Each tree there seemed
like two trees. She groped her way among them, dizzy, almost falling.
Sometimes the woods seemed to be moving. Perhaps it was by the merest
chance that she stumbled into the trail which led through the woods to
the highway, ending close to the old bridge.

But once in the familiar path she ran in a kind of frenzy. No doubt the
fever gave her a kind of temporary, artificial strength, as indeed it
gave her the crazy resolve somehow to still that haunting voice forever.
Crazed and reeling she stumbled and ran along, pausing now and again to
press her throbbing head, then running on again like one possessed.

At last she came out of the woods suddenly on to the broad, smooth
highway. There was the bridge, silent and--no, not dark. For there was a
bright spot somewhere underneath it and gray smoke wriggling up through
those cracks between the planks. And there, yes, there, crawling away
in the darkness was a black figure. A silent, stealthy figure, stealing
away.

To the dazed, feverish girl, the figure seemed to have two pairs of
arms. She tried to call but could not. Her scream of delirious fright
died away into a murmur as she staggered and fell prone upon the ground
and knew no more.

But never again--never, never would those cruel planks taunt her
with their heartless prediction. Never would they frighten the poor,
sensitive, fearful little red-headed orphan girl any more.

CHAPTER XXVIII

STOCK ON HAND

It was Joey Burnside, the burliest and heartiest of the volunteer
firemen, who carried Pepsy