sniffing the air suspiciously with his thin nostrils, and listening,
with Howland so close to him that their shoulders touched. From the top
of the mountain there came again the mournful death-song of old Woonga,
and Jean shivered. Howland stared into the blotch of gloom, and still
staring he followed Croisset--entered--and disappeared in it. About them
was the stillness and the damp smell of desertion. There was no visible
sign of life, no breathing, no movement but their own, and yet Howland
could feel the half-breed's hand clutch him nervously by the arm as they
went step by step into the black and silent mystery of the place. Soon
there came a fumbling of Croisset's hand at a latch and they passed
through a second door. Then Jean struck a match.

Half a dozen steps away was a table and on the table a lamp. Croisset
lighted it, and with a quiet laugh faced the engineer. They were in a
low, dungeon-like chamber, without a window and with but the one door
through which they had entered. The table, two chairs, a stove and a
bunk built against one of the log walls were all that Howland could see.
But it was not the barrenness of what he imagined was to be his new
prison that held his eyes in staring inquiry on Croisset. It was the
look in his companion's face, the yellow pallor of fear--a horror--that
had taken possession of it. The half-breed closed and bolted the door,
and then sat down beside the table, his thin face peering up through the
sickly lamp-glow at the engineer.

"M'seur, it would be hard for you to guess where you are."

Howland waited.

"If you had lived in this country long, M'seur, you would have heard of
_la Maison de Mort Rouge_--the House of the Red Death, as you would call