"Who are they, I wonder?" I asked. "Do you recognize them?"
"No. They are entire strangers to me," was her answer. "But they seem
fairly well dressed. Perhaps two sportsmen from some shooting-party in
the neighborhood. They've lost their way most probably."
"But I don't think they carried guns," I said. "One of them had
something over his shoulder?"
"Wasn't it a gun? I thought it was."
"No, he wasn't carrying it like he'd carry a gun. It was short--and
seemed more like a spade."
"A spade!" she gasped quickly in a low voice. "A spade! Are you certain
of that?"
"No, not at all certain. We only had an instantaneous glance of them.
We were unfortunately too late to see them face to face."
"The back of one of the men, the tall fellow in the brown suit, was
broad and square--the back of someone who is familiar to me, only for
the moment I can't recollect whose it resembles." She only spoke in a
whisper, fearing lest we should be discovered.
I longed to scramble down and rush after the intruders, only the belief
that one of them carried a spade and the other an iron bar struck me as
curious, while at the same moment my eye caught sight of a portion of
the ground below us at the base of the rock which had evidently been
recently disturbed.
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