He was about to push forward to investigate, when he heard a faint noise like something walking in the mud. He drew back. The sound was louder now. Then, out of the storm, came some bulky-looking objects, which, when they came into the glow of the lantern, proved to be two men and a horse.
They stopped, almost in reach of Bud, blocking him from the lantern, and began unpacking the horse. Neither of them spoke until their unpacking was done. The horse moved slightly ahead, and Bud saw one of them, the one on the further side, pick up a keg, balance it on his shoulder and disappear under the lantern.
"Put out the light when you come in," ordered the man with the keg, and the one at the horse grunted a reply. As he lifted the keg, Bud shortened his grip on his rifle and swung it forward in a short arc.
The man collapsed without a sound and the heavy keg struck the ground with a thud. Bud grasped the lantern and examined him quickly. He was wearing a checked mackinaw coat and a moth-eaten fur cap. Swiftly Bud stripped these off and put them on himself. Then he hoisted the keg on his own shoulder, stumbled over to the entrance to what proved to be a tunnel, jerked the light from the lantern and went stumbling in through the darkness.
He had no idea of what was ahead of him, and swore at himself for being a fool, but kept on going. He had left his rifle outside and was unarmed. As near as he could tell he had gone about a hundred feet, when he turned a corner and saw the light shining through an open door.
A babble of voices came to him, the reek of liquor and stale tobacco smoke; but he ducked his head and went straight through the doorway and into a room, which was partly filled with men and entirely filled with conversation.
Someone cheered loudly and the keg was taken from him by willing hands. He was jostled aside and came to a stop with his back against a wall. Then he lifted his head and looked around cautiously.
He was in a room about twenty feet wide by forty feet long; a low-ceiled place, with heavy, rough beams. On one side was a rough, bar-like counter, on which the two kegs had been placed, and just beyond one end of the bar was a rough stairway, leading up to what appeared to be a trap-door.
At the further end of the room was a small platform, on which sat a fiddler and a man with an accordeon. Nearly in the center of the room a crowd of men were packed around a card-table, over which hung a big, oil lamp, with huge circular shade. Over the bar was another, smaller lamp.
The room was foggy with smoke and there seemed to be no ventilation. The kegs of liquor seemed to be the center of interest just now; so Bud moved over toward the crowd at the card-table, taking pains to conceal his face.