He
realized that peril threatened now.
He turned squarely about and, cocked pistol in one hand and
huge-knobbed cane in the other, he started away from the spot at a
cripple's gallop. The whole trough of the gully of sand seemed to be
in motion. Behind him the old mare scrambled and whistled with fear,
quite as unable to keep her feet as was the captain.
For, before he had gone far, Cap'n Ira found himself seated on the
moving plane of sand. He glanced fearfully behind him. The Queen of
Sheba was seated on her tail, her forefeet braced against nothing
more stable than the avalanche itself, and she was sailing down the
slope behind him like a winged Pegasus!
"My soul and body!" ejaculated Cap'n Ira. "We're certainly on our
way."
CHAPTER IV
AT THE LATHAM HOUSE
The Latham house stood in the middle of the shallow valley behind
Wreckers' Head. The fields surrounding it were arable and well kept.
The house was not as old as the Ball house and was of an entirely
different style of architecture. Whereas the Ball house was
low-roofed and sprawling, squatting like a huge and ugly toad on the
gale-swept Head, the house Tunis Latham's grandfather had built was
three-story, including the mansard roof, painted a tobacco brown,
and it was surrounded by wry-limbed cedars which could grow here
because they were sheltered from the gales.
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