CHAPTER VIII
NIGHT
Night poured into the hollow of the Hidden Homestead in an amethystine flood of shadow, rising slowly as the last light shifted upwards towards the crags, and the bowl, filled at last with the wine of dusk, brimmed over into the void. The crags held the sunset rays, rosy and then fading gradually to gray, to purple spires hardly distinguishable against the sky, save as they were blocked out by the stars. Only, in the heart of the ancient crater, a light showed orange in the window of the log house and was reflected in the placid water of the little lake.
All day Mary and Thora had worked uncrating and arranging the furniture that had come from far off Hannal, each piece bringing with it the memories and the atmosphere of New England transferred to the West, the old Colonial to the new. It was always crisp after dark on Ghost Mountain and they had lit a fire both for warmth and cheerful celebration. The light winked back from polished mahogany, from the brass of drawer handles and candlesticks, from a few bits of silver, from the gilded frames of pictures and from the massive andirons that reared themselves aristocratically on the frontier hearthstone. Highboy and
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