repassed the windows. Preble Key smiled, Parker shrugged his
shoulders.

"He'll be thinkin' you've begrudged him your grub if you don't--
that's the way with these business men," said Uncle Dick's voice in
one of these intervals. Presently they reentered the house, Uncle
Dick saying casually to Parker, "You can leave that draft on the
bar when you're ready to go to-morrow;" and the incident was
presumed to have ended. But Collinson did not glance in the
direction of Parker for the rest of the evening; and, indeed,
standing with his back to the chimney, more than once fell into
that stolid abstraction which was supposed to be the contemplation
of his absent wife.

From this silence, which became infectious, the three guests were
suddenly aroused by a furious clattering down the steep descent of
the mountain, along the trail they had just ridden! It came near,
increasing in sound, until it even seemed to scatter the fine
gravel of the river-bed against the sides of the house, and then
passed in a gust of wind that shook the roof and roared in the
chimney. With one common impulse the three travelers rose and went
to the door. They opened it to a blackness that seemed to stand as
another and an iron door before them, but to nothing else.

"Somebody went by then," said Uncle Dick, turning to Collinson.
"Didn't you hear it?"

"Nary," said Collinson patiently, without moving from the chimney.

"What in God's name was it, then?"