"Still, when you had the spot where you came upon Verneille to work
from, you should have seen it from one of the spurs of the range."

"Yes," admitted Weston, "that seems reasonably evident, though we
certainly saw no sign of it." He broke off and laughed. "The whole
thing sounds crazy, doesn't it? Still, as I said, I believe we are
going to be successful."

He turned away and busied himself with some of the gear; and neither
of them said anything further until they ran into the bay before the
house. Three or four days later Weston conveyed the party down the
lake to the carriage that was waiting to take them to the station; and
Ida laid her hand in his for only a moment before she drove away.

CHAPTER XVII

SCARTHWAITE-IN-THE-FOREST

Ida Stirling had spent some time in England when, one autumn evening,
she descended the wide oak staircase of Scarthwaite Hall at
Scarthwaite-in-the-Forest. There was no forest in the vicinity, though
long ago a certain militant bishop had held by kingly favor the right
of venery over the surrounding moors, and now odd wisps of straggling
firs wound up the hollows that seamed them here and there. Nobody
seemed to know who first built Scarthwaite Hall, though many a
dalesman had patched it afterward and pulled portions of it down. It
was one of the ancient houses, half farm and half stronghold, which
may still be found in the north country. They were, until a few
decades ago, usually in possession of the Statesmen who worked their
own land. The Statesmen have gone--economic changes vanquished
them--but the houses they inherited from the men who bore pike and bow
at Bannockburn and Flodden are for the most part standing yet. They
have made no great mark in history, but their stout walls have time
and again been engirdled by Scottish spears, and after such occasions
there was not infrequently lamentation by Esk and Liddell.

It was clear that Scarthwaite Hall had been built in those days of
foray, for one little, ruined, half-round tower rose from the brink of
a ravine whose sides the hardiest of moss-troopers could scarcely have
climbed. A partly filled-in moat led past the other, and in between
stretched the curtain wall which now formed the facade of the house
itself. Its arrow slits had been enlarged subsequently into narrow,
stone-ribbed windows, and a new entrance made, while the ancient
courtyard was girt with decrepit stables and barns. Most of the deep,
winding da