ster. Slam the door, will ye?" And in another moment
Peter was left alone.

It was now after sunset, and the depths of the wood were bathed in
shadow. Peter took the road indicated and in a moment reached two stone
pillars where a man was standing. Beyond the man he had a glimpse of
lawns, a well-kept driveway which curved toward the wood. The man at the
gate was of about Peter's age but tall and angular, well tanned by
exposure and gave an appearance of intelligence and capacity.

"I came to see Mr. McGuire," said Peter amiably.

"And what's your name?"

"Nichols. I'm the new forester from New York."

The young man at the gate smiled in a satirical way.

"Nichols. That was the name," he ruminated. And then with a shout to
some one in the woods below, "Hey, Andy. Come take the gate."

All the while Peter felt the gaze of the young man going over him
minutely and found himself wondering whether or not this was the person
who was going to take him at a gobble.

It was. For when the other man came running Peter heard him call the
gateman, "Shad."

"Are you Mr. Shad Wells?" asked Peter politely with the pleasant air of
one who has made an agreeable discovery.

"That's my name. Who told you?"

"Miss Beth Cameron," replied Peter. "We came part of the way together."

"H-m! Come," he said laconically and led the way up the road toward the
house. Peter didn't think he was very polite.

Had it not been for the precautions of his guide, Peter would have been
willing quite easily to forget the tales that had been told him of Black
Rock. The place was very prettily situated in the midst of a very fine
growth of pines, spruce and maple. At one side ran the tea-colored
stream, tumbling over an ancient dam to levels below, where it joined
the old race below the ruin that had once been a mill. The McGuire
house emerged in a moment from its woods and shrubbery, and stood
revealed--a plain square Georgian dwelling of brick, to which had been
added a long wing in a poor imitation of the same style and a garage and
stables in no style at all on the slope beyond. It seemed a most prosaic
place even in the gathering dusk and Peter seemed quite unable to
visualize it as the center of a mystery such as had been described. And
the laconic individual who had been born triplets was even less
calculated to carry out such an illusion.

But just as they were crossing the lawn on the approach to the house,
the earth beneath a clump of