a jumble of ragged hilltops behind the house, and before it the slope
fell away steeply to the valley far below. He had not realized before
that they had climbed so high or so far.

Joe Pollard was humming. Terry joined him on the way to the house with a
deepened sense of awe; he was even beginning to feel that there was a
touch or two of mystery in the make-up of the man.

Proof of the solidity with which the log house was built was furnished at
once. Coming to the house, there was only a murmur of voices and of
music. The moment they opened the door, a roar of singing voices and a
jangle of piano music rushed into their ears.

Terry found himself in a very long room with a big table in the center
and a piano at the farther end. The ceiling sloped down from the right to
the left. At the left it descended toward the doors of the kitchen and
storerooms; at the right it rose to the height of two full stories. One
of these was occupied by a series of heavy posts on which hung saddles
and bridles and riding equipment of all kinds, and the posts supported a
balcony onto which opened several doors--of sleeping rooms, no doubt. As
for the wall behind the posts, it, too, was pierced with several
openings, but Terry could not guess at the contents of the rooms. But he
was amazed by the size of the structure as it was revealed to him from
within. The main room was like some baronial hall of the old days of war
and plunder. A role, indeed, into which it was not difficult to fit the
burly Pollard and the dignity of his beard.

Four men were around the piano, and a girl sat at the keys, splashing out
syncopated music while the men roared the chorus of the song. But at the
sound of the closing of the door all five turned toward the newcomers,