Julian arose to his feet, and having turned down the quilts began to divest himself of his jacket. Suddenly he paused and stood holding the garment in his hand, and looking first at the candle on the table and then at the hangings which concealed the walls.
“I’ve heard and witnessed enough to-night to make a coward of almost anybody except Silas Roper,” thought he, “but I believe I’ve got the nerve to do it. I am going to see what is on the other side of those curtains. If there is any way for that emigrant, or for those people that Sanders spoke of to get in here, I want to know it. I shouldn’t like to wake up in the night and find them prowling about my room. Gracious!”
Julian felt the cold chills creeping over him, and glanced quickly about the apartment, half-expecting to see some frightful object advancing upon him from some dark corner.
At first he was half-inclined to pass the night in the easy-chair, and never go to sleep at all; but dismissing the thought almost as soon as it entered his mind, he snatched the candle from the table and hurrying across the room raised the hangings.
Nothing was to be seen but the huge blocks of stone which formed the walls. On one side of the room there was no opening except the fire-place, opposite to which was the door. The other two sides, as Julian discovered when he raised the hangings, were provided with windows.
He placed his face close to the panes, but not even the twinkle of a star could be seen through the gloom. Somewhat surprised thereat, Julian deposited his candle on the floor, looped back the curtains and carefully raised the window. It opened into what appeared to be a deep recess in the wall. At the opposite side was a heavy iron-bound door, just the size of the window, which swung inward as Julian drew the bolt, and then he saw the stars shining down upon him, and the full moon rising above the mountain tops.
“This house was certainly intended for a fort,” thought the boy, gazing in surprise at the massive walls around him, which seemed strong enough to resist the heaviest artillery. “There isn’t a wooden partition in it as far as I’ve seen. They are all of stone, and must be six or seven feet thick. I can’t see the use of it.”
This was a point upon which Julian was enlightened before he was many hours older. He learned that the walls were not as solid as they appeared; that there were long corridors and winding passage-ways running through them, communicating with every room in the house, and all leading to a gloomy cavern in the hill behind the building, with which he was destined soon to become well acquainted.
Julian held the shutters open and took a survey of the scene before him. He saw the high stone wall which surrounded the house on all sides, the ponderous gate which had opened a short time before to admit him and the trappers, the well-beaten bridle-path leading across the valley toward the mountains, and noted even the smallest object within the range of his vision, but nothing looked familiar.
The home of his boyhood was not so gloomy and desolate a place as this in which he now found himself. There was no high wall to shut out all view of the outer world, but there were flowers blooming before the door, a pleasant grove close by, and people constantly coming and going. And there was a jolly old gentleman, from whose side he was scarcely ever separated, who used to take him on his knee and talk to him for hours; and now and then a laughing, blue-eyed boy would make his appearance after a long absence, spend a few days in romping with him and then go off again. Where was that father and brother now? If they were alive and well, as Silas had so often assured him, why were they not living there in the rancho, if that was their home? Why should they remain away and allow a stranger to take the management of their affairs?