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"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she cried again. The obedient echo repeated the cry; but did the blind girl hear it? She seemed still to be listening. Janice crept on along the broken wharf, her hand outstretched, her heart beating in her throat. The child ventured another step, and, indeed, she stamped upon the beam.
"I understand-a da work," replied Tony, "and I like-a da live in-a da country, if you no-a make-a me sleep in-a da barn." "Where do you come from?" asked Bob. "From Italia. My fader, he-a da contracdisto and I learn-a da mase and-a da carpendero." "Well, why didn't you stay in Italy?" asked Bob.
Hi! Hi-a! He-a! Hi!" Danger was waking in the camp behind, first with one sharp cry, then another and another, until throat after throat took up the sound and the yapping turned into a roar. They were but half-way through the narrow gorge. The two men broke into a stumbling run. Ridgar was going backwards, half-turned to see ahead, and suddenly his foot struck a loose pebble and he fell headlong.
The child faced the not far-distant line of thickly-ranked spruce upon the opposite shore of the little inlet, and from her parted lips there issued a strange, wailing cry: "He-a! he-a! he-a!" she repeated, three times; and back into her face was flung the mocking laughter of the echo. Janice had stopped again held spellbound by wonder and curiosity. The little girl stood in a listening attitude.
"He-a! he-a! he-a!" she wailed again a thin, shrill, unchildlike sound that made Janice shudder. The cry was almost one of anger, surely that stamping of her foot denoted vexation. Janice could see the profile of the child's face, a sweet, wistful countenance. Her lips moved once more and, in a thin, flat voice, she murmured over and over again: "I have lost it! I have lost it!"
Lottie had believed that in the pines her echo lived, and Janice could almost hear now the childish wail of the little one as she shouted, "He-a! he-a! he-a!" to the mysterious sprite that dwelt in the pines and mocked her with its voice. Blind and very deaf, Lottie had been wont to run fearlessly out upon the broken dock and "play with her echo," as she called it.
"That's what I say," she cried, and laughed. "Come on! let's tell it to Lottie's echo. We'll see if it is still lurking in the dark old spruce trees over yonder on the point." She darted ahead of him and reached the ruined wharf where Lottie had stood when first Janice had seen her. In imitation of the child she raised her voice in that weird cry: "He-a! he-a! he-a!"
"He-a, he-a, he-o-o-o," more boisterously roared out a fun-loving chap, who knew more about good living than good manners. And so the laugh passed round. The cause of all this uproar, was a merry fellow, who had made a rabbit out of one of the girl's handkerchiefs, and was springing it from his hand against the wall.
Then she demanded, quickly: "Do they let you come here alone? Where do you live?" The little girl did not answer; of course she did not hear. She was still looking back toward the tall wall of spruce across the inlet, from which the sharp echo was flung. "He-a! he-a! he-a!" she wailed again, and the echo sent back the cry; but the little girl shook her head. "I have lost it!
She would dance and clap her hands when she felt the vibration of certain minor chords, and come running to the visitors and attract their attention to the sounds that she could "hear." "He-a! he-a! he-a!" she shouted in that shrill toneless voice of hers. Janice noticed that she talked less than formerly. Gradually the power of speech was going from her because of disuse.
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