r desire to meet the man again--a feeling thoroughly alien
to the Cavendish mystery. She glanced into the cracked mirror and
laughed, half ashamed at her eagerness, yet utterly unable to suppress
the quickened beat of her pulse.

She was ready almost in a minute, and had blown out the lamp. Again
she ventured a glance out into the street below, but the skulking
figure had disappeared, no one lurked anywhere in the gloom. There was
not a sound to disturb the night. She almost held her breath as she
opened the door silently and crept out into the hall. Stella possessed
no knowledge of any back stairway, but the dim light enabled her to
advance in comparative quiet.

Once a board creaked slightly, even under her light tread, and she
paused, listening intently. She could distinguish the sound of heavy
sleepers, but no movement to cause alarm, and, assured of this, crept
forward. The hall turned sharply to the right, narrowing and becoming
dark as the rays of light failed to negotiate the corner. Twenty feet
down this passage ended in a door. This was unlocked, and yielded
easily to the grasp of her hand. It opened upon a narrow platform, and
she ventured forth. Gripping the hand-rail she descended slowly into
the darkness below, the excitement of the adventure causing her heart
to beat like a trip-hammer.

At the bottom she was in a gloom almost impenetrable, but her feet felt
a cinder path and against the slightly lighter sky her eyes managed to
distinguish the gaunt limbs of a tree not far distant, the only one
visible and doubtless the cottonwood referred to in the note.

Shrinking there in the black shadow of the building she realised
suddenly the terror of her position--the intense loneliness; the
silence seemed to smite her. There occurred to her mind the wild,
rough nature of the camp, the drunkenness of the night before; the wide
contrast between that other scene of debauchery and this solitude of
silence leaving her almost unnerved. She endeavoured to recall her
surroundings, how the land lay here at the rear of the hotel. She
could see only a few shapeless outlines of scattered buildings, not
enough to determine what they were like. She had passed along that way
toward the bridge that afternoon, yet now she could remember little,
except piles of discarded tin cans, a few scattered tents, and a cattle
corral on the summit of the ridge.

Still it was not far to the tree, and surely there could be