cast a semi-circle skirting the house and bringing him
behind the barns. Here he retreated to a little jutting point of land
from behind which the house was invisible, and there dismounted.

Haw-Haw Langley followed example reluctantly. He complained: "I ain't
never heard before of a man leavin' his hoss behind him! It ain't right
and it ain't policy."

His leader, however, paid no attention to this grumbling. He skirted
back behind the barns, walking with a speed which extended even the long
legs of Haw-Haw Langley. Most of the stock was turned out in the
corrals. Now and then a horse stamped, or a bull snorted from the fenced
enclosures, but from the barns they heard not a sound. Now Mac Strann
paused. They had reached the largest of the barns, a long, low
structure.

"This here," said Mac Strann, "is where that hoss must be. They wouldn't
run a hoss like that with others. They'd keep him in a big stall by
himself. We'll try this one, Haw-Haw."

But Haw-Haw drew back at the door. The interior was black as the hollow
of a throat as soon as Mac Strann rolled back the sliding door, and
Haw-Haw imagined evil eyes glaring and twinkling at him along the edges
of the darkness.

"The wolf!" he cautioned, grasping the shoulder of his companion. "You
ain't goin' to walk onto that wolf, Mac?"

The latter struck down Haw-Haw's hand.

"A wolf makes a noise before it jumps," he whispered, "and that warnin'
is all the light I need."

Now their eyes grew somewhat accustomed to the dark and Haw-Haw could
make out, vaguely, the posts of the stalls to his right. He could not
tell whether or not some animal might be lying down between the posts,
but Mac Strann, pausing at every stall, seemed to satisfy himself at a
glance. Right down the length of the barn they passed until they reached
a wall at the farther end.

"He ain't here," sighed Haw-Haw, with relief. "Mac, if I was you, I'd
wait till they was light before I went huntin' that wolf."

"He ought to be here," growled Mac Strann, and lighted a match. The
flame spurted in a blinding flash from the head of the match and then
settled down into a steady yellow glow. By that brief glow Mac Strann
looked up and down the wall. The match burned out against the calloused
tips of his fingers.

"That wall," mused Strann, "ain't made out of the same timber as the
side of the barn. That wall is whole years newer. Haw-Haw, that _ain't_
the end of the barn. They's a holler space beyon