III.
At the northern limit of the town, some distance from the Hôtel de Ville, where the soldiers had congregated, there stood a rough story-and-a-half stone house, built probably about the middle of the last century. It was the last house on the street, and looked westward, toward the town cemetery across the way. Three windows on the north side faced a valley that descended somewhat abruptly, forming at the lower extremity a channel through which a rapid creek wound its way. So far as anybody knew the house was empty, as it had been within the memory of the oldest citizen. If it was regarded by anybody, it was as an old and useless landmark designating the northern limit of the town, and one which should have been destroyed and removed but for the fact that nobody wanted the piece of ground, much less the heap of stone. If it had an owner, no one
