s the lowest step and
back. All beyond, where the light streamed down the path to the gate,
was sky-fresh snow softly laid without wind. 'Those are my tracks,' he
said. 'There were no others before--sure,' he repeated, 'and there is no
one down at the gate. You need not go down there. Say nothing to her,'
he continued as we re-opened the door.

"She was expecting us. She was very pale but half smiling, braving it
out. She fixed her eyes on Fleming and then on me. 'Did you not _both_
hear that knock?' As she spoke it came again. I stood nearest the door;
I hurled it open. Absolutely nothing. The lights, burning in a silly
way, made shadows on the steps. Not a mark, not even a leaf-track on the
path we could see below.

"I went over to the telephone and called up the post-office. What
happened at the house in absence I do not know. I found the drawing-room
empty; Fleming joined me coming from his wife's room.

"'She is fearfully upset by that knocking,' he said. 'Can't we think up
some explanation?'

"I feared he would have less courage for inventing explanations after
what I had to tell him.

"I had followed the track of a horse and cart to the stable and found
Gideon's old mare at her hitching-post; the cart was empty, the muddy
lap-robe dragging over the wheel. At the post-office they told me Gideon
had started for the mine an hour and a half ago. 'Hasn't he got out
there with that telegram yet?' they added. From the telegraph office,
where they knew Gideon's hours, they had sent a message across to the
post-office to be carried out by him with the mail. The voice on the
telephone remarked, 'I guess they ought to get that wire pretty soon. It
was marked _Important.'_

"Fleming was cold and shaking as he listened. 'Drive back along the road
through the woods, Joshua'--he seldom called me by that name. 'I think
something has happened to the old man. His knock is on duty tonight, but
where is he?'

"It came again, and following it a low cry from passage behind closed
doors. 'She heard it too,' said Fleming. And he went to his wife.

"I called up the landing-man to help me--Tommy Briscoe; I knew he
wouldn't spread any talk about. The search was not long. A lantern
burning by itself in the woods showed us where he had stopped the cart
and half turned and tramped around in the snow. He'd dropped the bag
out, probably, missed it and looked for it on foot, setting his lantern
down. He'd gone back quite a bit along th