ruin. Every individual board appeared to be rotting and crumbling toward
the ground, awaiting the shake of one fierce gust of wind to disappear
in a cloud of mouldy dust. He left his horse with the reins hanging over
its head behind the house and entered by the back door. One step past
the threshold brought him misadventure, for his foot drove straight
through the rotten flooring and his leg disappeared up to the knee.

After that he proceeded more cautiously, following the lines of the
beams on which the boards were nailed, but even these shook and groaned
under his weight. A whimsical fancy made him think of the fabled boat of
Charon which will float a thousand bodiless spirits over the Styx but
which sinks to the water-line with the weight of a single human being.

So he passed forward like one in a fabric of spider-webs almost fearing
to breathe lest the whole house should puff away to shreds before him.
Half the boards, fallen from the ceiling, revealed the bare rafters
above; below there were ragged holes in the flooring. In one place a
limb, torn by lightning or wind from its overhanging tree, had crashed
through the corner of the roof and dropped straight through to the
ground.

At last he reached a habitable room in the front of the house. It was a
new shell built inside the old wreck, with four stout corner-posts
supporting cross-beams, which in turn held up the mouldering roof. In
the centre was a rude table and on either side a bunk built against the
wall. Perhaps this was where Drew lived on the occasions of his visits
to the old ranchhouse.

Out of the gloom of the place, Bard stepped with a shrug of the
shoulders, like one who shakes off the spell of a nightmare. He strode