Mike laid a detaining hand on the arm of Wilder. They were moving cautiously through the woods skirting the clearing in which the great, sprawling, log-built house stood.
Wilder had halted in response to the Irishman’s gesture, and whispered back his inquiry with some impatience.
“Someone behind us.” The eyes of the other were searching amongst the trees and undergrowth through which they had just passed. “Guess the bush broke twice. It’s no sort of fancy. Ther’s someone—”
He broke off listening, and Wilder distinctly recognised the faint snapping of brushwood somewhere away in rear of them.
They waited. But as no further sound was forthcoming Wilder shrugged his shoulders and nodded in the direction of the clearing.
“Guess we can’t worry with that,” he said, his eyes regarding the pile of buildings upon which the sunlight was pouring. “There’s not a soul around that house anyway, so far as I can see. Guess there isn’t even a cur dog. We best quit this wood, and make a break for it. We got to know who lives there. And it don’t much matter how they take our visit. You got your guns fixed right?”
The Irishman chuckled in his light-hearted fashion. The invasion of the house appealed to his reckless spirit. His fighting temper made him hope, and his hope found swift expression.
“I’ll be sick to death if it’s white folk,” he said. “I’m yearning to hit up against some of the Euralian gang. Come right on, boss. I’m your man if you’re goin’ to break in on ’em. My guns are sure fixed.”
Their guns were utterly unneeded. As Wilder had surmised the place was completely deserted. Their intrusion had passed unchallenged by any living thing from the moment of entering the clearing. Now at last, having passed through a seemingly endless series of rooms and passages, they found themselves standing in a great central hall, beautiful in its simple display of rich oriental decorations.
The Irishman’s blue eyes were grinning as they surveyed the deserted splendour with which he was surrounded. He was incapable of appreciating the full significance of that upon which he gazed. He had been robbed of a forcible encounter, but he found some sort of compensation in the astounding thing they had discovered.