rubbed surface and showed him a door to his right,
opening into the main part of the house.

He passed through it at once and sighed with relief when his foot
touched the carpet on the hall beyond. He noted, too, that there was
no sign of a creak from the boards beneath his tread. However old
that house might be, he was a noble carpenter who laid the flooring,
Ronicky thought, as he slipped through the semi-gloom. For there was
a small hall light toward the front, and it gave him an uncertain
illumination, even at the rear of the passage.

Now that he was definitely committed to the adventure he wondered more
and more what he could possibly gain by it. But still he went on, and,
in spite of the danger, it is doubtful if Ronicky would have willingly
changed places with any man in the world at that moment.

At least there was not the slightest sense in remaining on the lower
floor of the house. He slipped down the shadow of the main stairs,
swiftly circled through the danger of the light of the lower hall lamp
and started his ascent. Still the carpet muffled every sound which
he made in climbing, and the solid construction of the house did not
betray him with a single creaking noise.

He reached the first hall. This, beyond doubt, was where he would find
the room of the man who sneered--the archenemy, as Ronicky Doone was
beginning to think of him. A shiver passed through his lithe, muscular
body at the thought of that meeting.

He opened the first door to his left. It was a small closet for brooms
and dust cloths and such things. Determining to be methodical he went
to the extreme end of the hall and tried that door. It was
locked, but, while his hand was still on the knob, turning it in
disappointment, a door, higher up in the house, opened and a hum
of voices passed out to him. They grew louder, they turned to the
staircase from the floor above and commenced to descend at a running
pace. Three or four men at least, there must be, by the sound, and
perhaps more!

Ronicky started for the head of the stairs to make his retreat,
but, just as he reached there, the party turned into the hall and
confronted him.

Chapter Ten

_Mistaken Identity_

To flee down the stairs now would be rank folly. If there happened to
be among these fellows a man of the type of him who sneered, a bullet
would catch the fugitive long before he reached the bottom of the
staircase. And, since he could not retreat, Ronicky went s