Part 10 (1/2)

”That's McGuire's--in the pines. They won't let me go no further.”

”How much do I owe you?” asked Peter, getting down.

”It's paid for, Mister. Slam the door, will ye?” And in another moment Peter was left alone.

It was now after sunset, and the depths of the wood were bathed in shadow. Peter took the road indicated and in a moment reached two stone pillars where a man was standing. Beyond the man he had a glimpse of lawns, a well-kept driveway which curved toward the wood. The man at the gate was of about Peter's age but tall and angular, well tanned by exposure and gave an appearance of intelligence and capacity.

”I came to see Mr. McGuire,” said Peter amiably.

”And what's your name?”

”Nichols. I'm the new forester from New York.”

The young man at the gate smiled in a satirical way.

”Nichols. That was the name,” he ruminated. And then with a shout to some one in the woods below, ”Hey, Andy. Come take the gate.”

All the while Peter felt the gaze of the young man going over him minutely and found himself wondering whether or not this was the person who was going to take him at a gobble.

It was. For when the other man came running Peter heard him call the gateman, ”Shad.”

”Are you Mr. Shad Wells?” asked Peter politely with the pleasant air of one who has made an agreeable discovery.

”That's my name. Who told you?”

”Miss Beth Cameron,” replied Peter. ”We came part of the way together.”

”H-m! Come,” he said laconically and led the way up the road toward the house. Peter didn't think he was very polite.

Had it not been for the precautions of his guide, Peter would have been willing quite easily to forget the tales that had been told him of Black Rock. The place was very prettily situated in the midst of a very fine growth of pines, spruce and maple. At one side ran the tea-colored stream, tumbling over an ancient dam to levels below, where it joined the old race below the ruin that had once been a mill. The McGuire house emerged in a moment from its woods and shrubbery, and stood revealed--a plain square Georgian dwelling of brick, to which had been added a long wing in a poor imitation of the same style and a garage and stables in no style at all on the slope beyond. It seemed a most prosaic place even in the gathering dusk and Peter seemed quite unable to visualize it as the center of a mystery such as had been described. And the laconic individual who had been born triplets was even less calculated to carry out such an illusion.

But just as they were crossing the lawn on the approach to the house, the earth beneath a clump of bushes vomited forth two men, like the fruit of the Dragon's Teeth, armed with rifles, who barred their way.

Both men were grinning from ear to ear.

”All right, Jesse,” said Shad with a laugh. ”It's me and the new forester.” He uttered the words with an undeniable accent of contempt.

The armed figures glanced at Peter and disappeared, and Peter and Mr.

Shad Wells went up the steps of the house to a s.p.a.cious portico. There was not a human being in sight and the heavy wooden blinds to the lower floor were tightly shut. Before his guide had even reached the door the sound of their footsteps had aroused some one within the house, the door was opened the length of its chain and a face appeared at the aperture.

”Who is it?” asked a male voice.

”Shad Wells and Mr. Nichols, the man from New York.”

”Wait a minute,” was the reply while the door was immediately shut again.

Peter glanced around him comparing this strange situation with another that he remembered, when a real terror had come, a tangible terror in the shape of a countryside gone mad with blood l.u.s.t. He smiled toward the bush where the armed men lay concealed and toward the gate where the other armed man was standing. It was all so like a situation out of an _opera bouffe_ of Offenbach.

What he felt now in this strange situation was an intense curiosity to learn the meaning of it all, to meet the mysterious person around whom all these preparations centered. Peter had known fear many times, for fear was in the air for weeks along the Russian front, the fear of German sh.e.l.ls, of poison gas, and of that worst poison of all--Russian treachery. But that fear was not like this fear, which was intimate, personal but intangible. He marked it in the scrutiny of the man who opened the door and of the aged woman who suddenly appeared beside him in the dim hallway and led him noiselessly up the stair to a lighted room upon the second floor. At the doorway the woman paused.