He held the torch close and scrutinized the mark.
“Looks like it. Pretty well gone by now--just a flake here and a daub there, but I guess it once was a broad band of white. A guide?”
They moved forward again. The strip ended in a blur that might once have been an inscription. Here, there, a letter faintly showed, but not one word could now be made out.
“Too bad,” he mused. “It must have been mighty important or they wouldn't have--”
“Here's a door, Allan!”
“So? That's right. Now this looks like business at last!”
He examined the door by the unsteady flicker of the torch. It was of iron, still intact, and fastened by a long iron bar dropped into massive metal staples.
“Beat it in with the ax?” she queried.
“No. The concussion might reduce everything inside to dust. Ah! Here's a padlock and a chain!”
Carefully he studied the chain beneath bent brows.