"Heard about that store from old Jake. Granddad over home was talking about it, too. It'll be convenient for the Camps and a fine thing for the settlers up here." She jumped up. "Well,--I guess I got to beat it, Mister----" "George Bremner," I put in. "My name's Rita;--Rita Clark. I stay over at the ranch there, the one with the red-roofed houses. This island's named Rita, too." "After you?" "Ya!--guess so!" She did not venture any more. "Been here long?" I asked. "Long's I can remember," she answered. "Like it?" "I love it. It's all I got. Never been away from it more'n three times in my life." There was something akin to longing in her voice. "I love it all the same,--all but that over there." As she spoke, she shivered and pointed away out to the great perpendicular rock, with its jagged, devilish, shark-like teeth, which rose sheer out of the water and stood black, forbidding and snarling, even in the sunshine, to the right, at the entrance to the Bay, a quarter of a mile or so from the far horn of Golden Crescent. "You don't like rocks?" "Some rocks," she whispered, "but not 'The Ghoul.'" "The Ghoul," I repeated with a shudder. "Ugh!--what a name. Who on earth saddled it with such a horrible name?" "Nobody on earth. Guess it must have been the devil in hell, for it's a friend of his." Her face grew pale and a nameless horror crept into her eyes. "It ain't nice to look on now,--is it?" "No!" I granted. "You want to see it in the winter, when there's a storm tearing in, with the sea crashing over it in a white foam and,--and,--people trying to hang on to it. Oh!--I tell you what it is,--it's hellish, that's all. It's well named The Ghoul,--it's a robber of the dead." "Robber of the dead!--what do you mean?" "Everybody but a stranger knows:--it robs them of a decent burial. Heaps of men, and women too, have been wrecked out there, but only one was ever known to come off alive. Never a body has ever been found afterwards." She shivered and turned her head away. For a while, I gazed at the horrible rock in fascination. What a reminder it was to the poor human that there is storm as well as calm; evil as well as good; that turmoil follows in the wake of quiet; that sorrow tumbles over joy; and savagery and death run riot among life and happiness and love! At last, I also turned my eyes away from The Ghoul, with a strong feeling of anger and resentment toward it. Already I loathed and hated the thing as I hated nothing else. I stood alongside the girl and we remained silent until the mood passed. Then she raised her eyes to mine and smiled. In an endeavour to forget,--which, after all, was easy amid so much sunshine and beauty,--I reverted to our former conversation. "You said you were seldom away from here. Don't you ever take a trip to Vancouver?"