Several hours later Dick Merriwell awoke with a start and lay still listening. Just what had roused him he did not know, but he felt that it must have been some unusual noise, or he would never have been wakened out of a sound sleep.
The house was silent as a tomb, except for the regular breathing which came from the Texan beside him and from the room where Jellison lay. His first waking thought had been that the latter was prowling about the house for some purpose, but the heavy breathing from the room showed that the stranger was either sound asleep or giving a very good imitation of it. At least he was there.
What could it have been? For a long time Dick strained his ears for a repetition of the noise, but nothing came. At last he decided that he must have imagined or dreamed it, and, relaxing himself, he closed his eyes and was just dropping off again when he opened them with a jerk and sat bolt upright in bed.
His quick ear had caught the faint but unmistakable sound of grating, as if two stones were being rubbed against each other, which came from somewhere downstairs.
The next moment Dick crept cautiously out of bed and slipped noiselessly into the hall. Bending over the railing, his eyes lighted up with triumph as he caught the faint gleam of light from the open door of the sitting room.
It was bitter cold, and he was clad in the thinnest of pajamas, but he did not notice this as he crept cautiously downstairs and approached the door. He was too interested in what was going on in that room to think of anything else.
Softly he crossed the lower hall and peered through the crack of the partly opened door. Then he saw that the light was in the dining room, and even as he advanced he heard a labored breathing as if some one was either making a great physical effort, or else was struggling under a tremendous mental strain.
With every nerve tingling and his curiosity at its highest pitch, Dick reached the door of the dining room and looked through the crack.
What he saw fairly paralyzed him with amazement. It was only with the greatest difficulty that he caught himself in time to prevent a gasp of surprise.
The great fire had died down and only a few embers glowed dully in the mammoth opening. The light he had seen came from a candle which was set down on the stone hearth, and close beside it knelt the figure of a man clad only in pajamas. His head was bent so that Merriwell could not see his face, but Dick was not thinking of him at the moment. His eyes were riveted on the gaping hole in the hearth over which the fellow was bending. It had been made by the removal of one of the stone slabs about eighteen inches square, and from where he stood Dick could see the interior quite distinctly.