“No, a house! See it?”
They looked to where her finger pointed. Undoubtedly, it was a farmhouse, located on the farther edge of the clearing in which they had halted. There was a vacant space about it, and several barn-like structures. But there was a curious lack of life around the place.
“I don’t believe any one lives there,” said Jack.
“Don’t be a pessimist,” urged his sister. “Let’s go and find out.”
They hurried toward the house, but the nearer they approached it the more it seemed that it was not a farmhouse in the ordinary sense of the word. Though in the midst of cleared fields that must at one time have been part of a farm, there were no growing crops. The fields were overgrown with weeds, there were no horses or cattle to be seen, and no challenging dog rushed out to bark at the boys and girls.
“Still some old man or woman may live there who can put us on the right road,” Cora suggested. “We won’t give up yet.”
Confirmation of Jack’s idea that the house was uninhabited was given as they went up the weed-entangled front path. And the sight of broken windows, a door sagging open on fractured hinges gave further aspects of abandonment.
“Anybody home?” called Walter, knocking on the door, which swayed as though it wanted to part company from the only hinge that held it up. “Who’s in here? Hello inside!”
An echo was his only answer, though as they had approached the place Paul had said he heard a noise inside.
“Nobody home,” said Jack. “But this is at least encouraging. We are getting ‘warm’ as they say in hunt the thimble. Let’s go around back. Maybe they don’t use the front door.”