Frank Owen

“ They were cold and damp, as the hands of a forest prowler naturally would be. Stark Laurier recoiled in horror. Then he pulled himself together and the struggle began in earnest. Each endeavored to grip the other's throat. Their sole desire was to kill.
Stark Laurier realized that at last he was face to face with the specter that haunted the mountain. It was not a wraith made of cloudlike mist, but a strong man of flesh and blood, though no less of a menace because of that fact. He wondered what had become of Nona. If he lost the fight, he shuddered to think of her possible fate. ”

“ Although Stark Laurier did not admit it to Nona, he, too, felt as if some terrible weight were crushing down on his shoulders, some impending disaster too frightful to dwell upon. Perhaps the gloom of "The Castle" added to his general depression, for it was seldom lighted cheerfully. Cass Ledyard would not permit more than one room to be lighted at a time, and as the lights were rather dull in any case because the shades were made of antique colored glass, the gloom of the halls and the other rooms seemed intensified by the single light. ”

“ I have been a slave to that idol more truly than any lama ever was. Always I have had the fear of retribution hanging over me. I have been a hunted thing, always watching for the grim, gaunt emissaries who must surely be relentlessly seeking me out.
"I used to live with Nona at Cresco, but we fled when some suspicious looking gipsies came and camped within half a mile of our house. I was afraid. Fear is a terrible thing. To be hunted like a wild thing is dreadful. But to be tormented by one's conscience is even worse. ”

“ When the workmen had departed, Cass Ledyard moved in. His daughter Nona accompanied him.
Cass Ledyard in time grew to be almost as great a mystery in Dromore as the Black Hill itself. Who he was, nobody knew. Nor did they have the faintest inkling whence he had come. He had covered his tracks as absolutely as if he had been a renowned criminal with a price upon his head. At Dromore he made friends with no one. Not a soul was ever invited to the house. ”

“ At once he commenced building the castle for her on Black Hill, a place dreaded by superstitious folk. It was haunted, they said, by strange wraiths as transparent as mist, and occasionally one heard eery sounds as of distant thunder. They pleaded with Dan Cooley not to build a home there, but he only derided their fears.
"The wraiths," he said, "exist only in people's distorted imaginations. They are just stray wisps of fog and mist such as float about any mountain peak. The weird booming is a purely natural phenomenon. ”

“ His name was Sig. But whether it was his first name or his last he refused to say.
"When I went to prison," he said, "I lost my personality. The man I was is dead. There are no threads of existence for me to take up again. The few living relatives I had went back on me. There isn't a soul in the world willing to give me a chance."
His words sounded so hopeless, Nona felt sorry for him at once, despite his uncouthness.
"If you wish," said she, "you can come and work for us; that is, if you are not afraid of Black Hill." ”

“ Romance, too, held its allure for him, and romance was typified in the person of Nona Ledyard.
During the ensuing days he wandered much in the woods with her. She told him all the superstitions pertaining to Black Hill, of the phantom noises, the mistlike wraiths that haunted the mountain fastnesses, and of the girl who had gone insane on her honeymoon in "The Castle".
"It is all very interesting," commented Stark Laurier, "but fiction purely. The phantom noises are undoubtedly merely a natural phenomenon. ”

“ Up forest-clad mountains we pushed our way, skirting moraines, through a region of perpetual snow and then down into a fertile valley once again. But the valley was only a flitting part of our journey, for soon we climbed a precipitous slope and entered the great corrugated uplands of Tibet, cut by bleak mountain ranges of tremendous height. ”

“ He smiled mirthlessly.
"Anger is a peculiar thing," he said. "It burns itself out by its very intensity. When I was finally released, my hatred had vanished, leaving me cold. Only hopelessness remained." ”

“ In fact, after Stark Laurier had helped him home—almost carried him in fact—he grew positively cordial and urged Stark to remain with them a while.
"We seldom, in fact never, have company," he said, "and your presence with us would undoubtedly help to break the monotony of the mountain silence."
Stark Laurier agreed with him absolutely after he had met Nona, for he realized that wherever she was no place could be monotonous for him. So that very afternoon he moved his things over to "The Castle." And again the country people shook their heads and declared that no good could come of it. ”

“ Add to this the fact that his head was rather huge, and it can be imagined that he presented a rather grotesque appearance. He always dressed in black, which accentuated the sallow color of his face and the wildness of his habitual expression.
"The only difference between Mrs. Cooley and Cass Ledyard," declared York Sills, "is that she went crazy after living in 'The Castle' and Ledyard was crazy before he moved in."
"A man would have to be insane," asserted Sportsly, "to even think of living on Black Hill." ”

“ I think, now, that at that moment I was temporarily delirious as a result of the terrible hardships we had encountered on the road to Lassa. But at the moment I did not wonder at my intense cupidity. To long to possess that statue of Buddha seemed the most natural thing in the world.
"I stole into the temple unchallenged. I might have been walking through a dead city for all the opposition I encountered. Five minutes later I had the idol in my possession and was fleeing back to the mountain solitudes. And now fear conquered. ”

“ We will prove that Black Hill, despite its sinister reputation, is the happiest, most joyous spot in the countryside."
So Dan Cooley continued his building, oblivious to all the comments and forebodings of the people, and at last the work was done. At the gayest party ever held in Dromore, a party to which all the poor folk of the countryside were invited, he was married. At the moment it seemed as if all the weird legends were groundless. ”

“ Once he told a peculiar story about an old soothsayer of the East who was well versed in all the arts, black, white and gray. He knew the science of color more definitely than any other man that ever lived. ”

“ He has drawn suspicion away from us and placed it upon the heads of the two old men who used to guard the temple of the Golden Buddha. The Dalai Lama has decreed that they must die to atone for the theft. If, within the next ten sunrises, the Golden Buddha is not returned, they are to be tied together, hand and foot, and east into the river. ”

“ Such noises, phantom noises if you like, occur in all parts of the world. Only recently the newspapers gave columns to a discussion of the cause, and scientists all agree that the sounds come up from the depths of the earth, the result of subterranean disturbances. ”