"Sure thing! The nearest station's in Tremont, five miles over bad roads. We'll bring 'em back in half an hour!"
In his excitement the young fellow threw his clutch in, and the big car leaped down the road before Evan could give him any further particulars.
On his way back Evan felt certain compunctions at the sight of Charley lying bound in the road. After all, Charley had been his friend for many a year. He wouldn't mind saving him from the consequences of his own folly if he could. That the police might not discover him when they came, Evan dragged him out of the road, and under a thick leafy bush to one side. Charley made imploring sounds through the gag. Evan continued along the rough track. He had the pocket flash to help him over the rough places now. In a quarter of a mile or more from the highway he came upon the dark mass of the old house rising against the night sky. It stood on a little rise in the midst of its clearing, which could scarcely be called a clearing now, for except in a small space immediately around the building the young trees were rising thickly.
It was a square block of a design somewhat freakish for a country residence, since the principal storey was above the entrance floor. There was a row of tall windows here, and above these windows an attic in the style of the eighteenth century. The tall windows evidently lighted the great room where Evan had suffered his ordeal at the hands of the Ikunahkatsi. It was in one of the back rooms on the same floor that the chief had his sanctum, he told himself. All the windows of the house were dark, but this did not prove that people were not within and awake, for Evan remembered the heavy shutters inside the windows.
He waited for a minute or two, and then began to get restless. In fact he itched for the glory of taking the chief single-handed. The letter of instructions had suggested that the chief would be alone in the building to-night, except for the old negress and the prisoner. And Evan was armed now. If he could find some way to make an entrance without giving an alarm, he believed it could be done.
He stole up to the front door on all fours. It was locked of course. He went around to the back; there were two doors here, both locked. He went from window to window. All of them had panes missing, but within each window the heavy shutters were closed and barred. He thought of cellar windows, sometimes they were forgotten. In certain places thick clumps of sumach had sprung up close to the house. Pushing behind one such clump, he stumbled on an old stone stair leading down. Once it had been closed by inclined doors, but these had rotted and fallen in. The steps led him into the cellar.