"I hear
something--something queer. Listen!"
[Illustration: "I hear something--something queer."]
Rudolf listened. "I don't hear anything," he said at last. "What was
it like?"
"Oh, such a creepy, crawly sound, and--Oh, Ruddy--there is a face--see
it? A horrid little face peeping out at us from behind that tree!"
Rudolf saw the face too, a winking, blinking, leering, little face
much like the one that had grinned at Ann from the post of the big bed
not so very long ago.
All at once as the children looked about them, they began to see faces
everywhere, faces in the crotches of the trees, faces where the
branches crossed high above their heads, faces even in the undergrowth
about their feet. It reminded Rudolf of the puzzle pictures he and Ann
were so fond of studying where you have to look and look before you
can find the hidden people, but when once you have found them you
wonder how you could have been so stupid as not to have spied them
long before. He heard distinctly now the noises Ann had heard. It was
as if the hidden places of the wood were full of small live things
which were gathering together and coming toward the children from
every direction, closing them in on every side. Then somebody laughed
in a high cracked voice just behind them, one of Ann's curls was
sharply pulled, and Rudolf's precious sword was plucked from his hand
and tossed upon the ground.
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