By this time Ted had entered fully into the sense of adventure of the thing. Surely, there was something unusual going on. Something important must be bringing this man out with his lantern to look around an old house. The building itself aroused Ted’s curiosity. Who could have built it up in the solitary fastness of the woods and how long had it been standing idle? Something beside the beauty of the place must be responsible for the intent prowling of the man with the lantern.
“I must see this house by daylight,” Ted decided.
The light winked suddenly around the far corner of the house and moved along the front. Rough steps were revealed and the man with the shadowy legs mounted the steps, crossed the porch and passed through a gaping doorway into a front door. A swift glimpse was afforded Ted of white plaster on the walls and then the light disappeared.
It was gone for some little time, finally appearing briefly in an upper window. After that it disappeared again and was gone so long that Ted grew highly impatient and seriously contemplating leaving. He knew that he should be getting back to the town, for it was late and he had a long drive before him. But the subject in hand fascinated him and he wanted to see it through.
“I’ll give the gentleman a few more minutes,” he thought. “If nothing shows up then, I’ll have to beat it.”
Crouching there in the bushes he waited straining his eyes toward the blackness of the house. The whole mountainside had now become so black that the house was not even distinguishable as a darker blot, and if the man with the lantern had not revealed it, Ted could not possibly have become aware of its presence except by bumping into it. With the light out of sight the darkness was a solid wall.
Just as Ted’s impatience was nearing the breaking point he heard the man with the light returning. There was a sound of crunching footsteps and he came down a staircase in the house and before long the flashing beam of the lantern showed. Man and lantern crossed the front porch and without hesitation approached the bushes off to the left of where Ted was concealed.
Now the lantern was placed on the ground and the man, still invisible and keeping out of the rays of the lamp in a manner that was particularly irritating, crashed his way into the bushes. Something was hauled forth with a rustling, crackling noise. For a brief instant the sides and rungs of a ladder were disclosed and then the thing passed out of the light circle. But there was a bump which led Ted to believe that the ladder, an old common farm ladder, had been placed against the side of the house.
In this guess he was correct. The lantern was lifted from the ground and the two mysterious legs sought the bottom rung of the ladder. As Ted watched, the light and the legs went up step by step, the side of the house, briefly illuminated, sliding by as the man mounted to the top.