barren, four-square room, was built of six inch logs, saddle-notched at the corners and chinked with moss and clay. An inspection of the cubical interior quickly convinced him that the walls could hold no closet or compartment large enough for the concealment of a human being. From the floor to the slanting roof overhead, all space was easily accounted for. He searched high and low, in the fireplace, behind the bunks, back of the door, under the window sills. Every log and chinked crevice between the logs was subjected to minutest scrutiny. He even climbed up on the bunk poles to assure himself that there was no false work between rafters and the outside roof. Nothing of interest was discovered.

There still was the floor to be looked under. The floor was made of adze-hewn puncheons, uneven and loosely laid, without being spiked to the beams. With an old spade he had found, Dexter got a purchase under one of the rude planks, and pried it up. He had eliminated all other possible places of retreat, and as he snapped on the button of his pocket-lamp and dropped to his knees, he felt with a certain sense of disquiet that something at last was due to happen.

A dank odor of forest mold came up from the hole he had made, and from the under darkness he heard the squeak and sudden scampering of a family of pack rats. But there was no other sound or movement of life.

He raised a second strip of flooring, and then, with a quick-drawn breath, he squeezed his lean body through the opening. There was no knowing what he might find under here, and as he flattened upon his chest to avoid the beams, he could not help reminding himself that quarters were a bit cramped for active maneuvering. The ground under him was littered with decaying forest stuff, and evidently had never been disturbed by rake or spade. There was barely enough space under the floor for him to move, but by wriggling along at full length, he made his way to the end of the cabin and back again. And he found nothing whatever. The mystery of the voice remained unsolved.

Emerging from the opening in the floor, he brushed the leaves and dirt from his uniform, and stood motionless for a space, a look of perplexity clouding his keen, weather-bronzed face. He had heard a sound like a whirring bell that, amazingly, had made him think of a telephone. But a telephone in service must have wires leading somewhere. He had examined every square foot of ground and walls and roof, and had found no connected instrument, nor any vestige of electric wiring in the cabin. There was no way to account for the bell. It was 

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