The Short Cut Read Online Free PDF Page A

care very much, Wanda?" he asked loverlike and foolishly.
    "I should," she informed him, her eyes twinkling. "For I shall be climbing right under you."
    "Oh, I know, then. We're going to heaven."
    And up he went. Laughing, calling back and forward like two children, their hearts gay and surcharged with something sweeter than mere gaiety, they made their way steadily, he always above, she just below him and carrying the parcel done up in a newspaper.
    "You might at least let me carry our baggage upon our journey," he offered more than once. But she insisted that this too was a part of the secret.
    At last he came to the limb that lay out across the ledge of rock and would have kept on climbing, he was so busy looking down at the rosy face that was looking up at him. But she commanded him to use his eyes for something else than just to make love with, and he understood.
    "You mean to say you've been up here before? That you've gone out across that sort of a bridge?" he exclaimed in amazement. "Aren't you afraid of anything in the world, Wanda?"
    "Yes," she answered. "Yes, to both questions. I'm inclined to be afraid of spiders; I think that I'd be afraid of an alligator. And now the secret!"
    "A cave," he cried. "Way up here! How in the world did you happen to find it?"
    When he had crossed first and given his hand to her she came swiftly to his side, thanked him with a nod and set him to work.
    "This is my own private estate," she told him. "No one enters my portals until he has been invited. You are not invited yet. In that seam in the rock you will find plenty of wood and dry cones. If you'll put them at the doorway I'll let you know when you can come in. And, Wayne-"
    "Yes?"
    "No one knows of this place except we two. Keep behind the cedar, won't you, so that if any one should be about you won't be seen?"
    Wayne gathered great armfuls of wood, piled cones conveniently, and in the meantime got no single glimpse of the interior of the cavern. For Wanda had slipped within, had drawn over the wide opening the screen of branches her own hands had made against the occasion, and was completely hidden by that and the curtain which reinforced it against a ray of light. He could hear her singing softly, happily as she went back and forth. At last her voice came to him, calling merrily.
    "You may come in, Mr. Shandon. Don't bring the wood with you yet; just come to look and admire."
    He thrust aside the screen, stepped through and his short exclamation amply repaid her for the many hours of preparation.
    A dozen tall candles burned here and there, set into niches in the rough walls, gummed in their own grease to knobs of stone, their pointed flames standing still like fairy spear blades menacing the shadows which still clung to the lofty ceiling. Giving added light was a blazing fire of pine cones at the far side of the cave, near the mouth of the passage leading to the cleft where the water shot down. Strewn across the whole floor, masking its rough surface, were pine needles which, while they made a thick mat underfoot, filled the cave with their resinous tang. And there was another odour, agreeable, homelike. Shandon looked again at the fire; set on each side of a bed of coals were two flat stones, perched on the stones a battered, blackened old coffee pot.
    "I called you a witch, didn't I, Wanda?"
    "You might at least have called me a Fairy," she retorted, her eyes bright with the joy of a day-dream come true.
    "Did you conjure this out of a broken eggshell with a wand? Is this how you got your name, Wanda?"
    She took him on a tour of exploration, pointing out each little thing which she had already seen alone, which, when she had seen it had promised her a day like to-day when she could show it to him. They went down the sloping passageway and stood for a little while silently before the chasm with its din of falling waters. They speculated upon what might lie upon the farther side if a man could cross. They came back to the fire