"DROME" AGAIN
Scranton produced a clipping from a newspaper.
"This," he told us, "is from today's noon edition of _The Herald_.
The account, you observe, is a short one; but it is my belief that
it will prove to have been (at any rate, the pre-cursor of) the most
extraordinary piece of news that this paper has ever printed."
He looked from one to the other of us as if challenging us to doubt it.
"What," asked Rhodes, "is it about?"
"The mysterious death (which the writer would have us believe was not
mysterious at all) of Miss Rhoda Dillingham, daughter of the well-known
landscape painter, on the Cowlitz Glacier, _at the Tamahnowis Rocks_,
on the afternoon of Wednesday last."
"Mysterious?" queried Milton Rhodes. "I remember reading a short
account of the girl's death. There was, however, nothing to indicate
that there had been anything at all mysterious about the tragedy. Nor
was there any mention of the Tamahnowis Rocks even. It said only that
she had been killed, by a fall, on the Cowlitz Glacier."
"But there _was_ something mysterious, Mr. Rhodes, how mysterious no
one seems to even dream. For again we have it, that word which White
heard the angel speak--that awful word Drome."
"Drome!" Milton Rhodes exclaimed. "That word again--after all these
years?"
"Yes," said Scranton. "And you will understand the full and fearful
meaning of what has just happened there on Mount Rainier when I tell
you that knowledge of that mysterious word has always been held an
utter secret by the Scrantons. No living man but myself knew it, and
yet there it is again."
"This is becoming interesting indeed!" exclaimed Milton Rhodes.
"I was sure that you would find it so. And now permit me to read to you
what the newspaper has to say about this poor girl's death."
He held the clipping up to get a better light upon it and read the
following:
"The death of Miss Rhoda Dillingham, daughter of Francis Dillingham,
the well-known painter of mountain scenery, on the Cowlitz Glacier
on the afternoon of last Wednesday, was, it has now been definitely
ascertained, a purely accidental one. Victor Boileau, the veteran Swiss
guide, has shown that there is not the slightest foundation for the
wild, fantastic rumors that began to be heard just after the girl's
death. Boileau's visit to the Tamahnowis Rocks, the scene of the
tragedy, and his careful examination of the place, have proved that
the victim came to her death by a fall from the rocks.
"There was no witness to the tragedy itself. Francis Dillingham, the
father of the unfortunate girl, was on another part of the rocks at the
time, sketching. On hearing the screams, he rushed to his daughter. He
found her lying on the ice at the foot of the rock, and on the point
of expiring. She spoke but once, and this was to utter these enigmatic
words:
"'Drome!' She said, 'Drome!'
"This is one of those features which gave rise to the stories that
something uncanny and mysterious had occurred at the Tamahnowis Rocks,
as if the spot, indeed, was justifying its eerie name.
"Another is that Dillingham declared that he himself, as he made his
way over the rocks in answer to his daughter's screams, heard another
voice, an unknown voice, and that he is sure that he distinctly heard
that voice pronounce that strange word Drome.
"Victor Boileau, however, has shown that there had been no third person
there at the occurrence of the tragedy, that Rhoda Dillingham's death
was wholly accidental, that it was caused by a fall, from a height of
about thirty feet, down the broken and precipitous face of the rocky
mass.
"Another feature much stressed by those who see a mystery in everything
connected with this tragic accident was the cruel wound in the throat
of the victim. The throat, it is said, had every appearance of having
been torn by teeth; but it is now known that the wound was made by some
sharp, jagged point of rock, struck by the girl during her fall."