“But Henry might have known!” John said. “No doubt his father told him of his adventure in it! I’m much obliged to you, Chirk!”

Chirk eyed him shrewdly. “You’re welcome. What might you be meaning to do?”

“Find the cavern, and discover what the secret of it is. If it’s being used to serve some purpose—why, that would explain what brought Coate to Kellands, and what made him ally himself with such a creature as Henry Stornaway!”

“If it is,” agreed Chirk sceptically.

“The more I think of it, the more convinced I am that nothing could be more likely,” declared John. “Jerry Chirk, I’ve a strong notion I am going to enjoy myself!”

Mr. Chirk noticed that there was a sparkle in his eyes, and a queer little upward tilt to the corners of his mouth, but since his acquaintanceship with the Captain was of the slightest he set no particular store by signs which would have sunk any of John’s cronies into the deepest foreboding. He merely said in a disparaging tone: “Well, I don’t know why you should, Soldier. What would anyone want with a cave, except maybe to hide in, and they ain’t doing that?”

The sparkle became more pronounced; the eyes were smiling now. “I don’t know. If it weren’t for Miss Nell and the Squire, I should call this a capital go! Something must be hidden in that cavern: all I have to do is to discover what!”

“I don’t see that neither,” objected Chirk. “If they’ve slummed some ken, and prigged the lurries out of it—diamonds and pearls, and silver feeders and such—they wouldn’t go putting it into a cavern, not unless they was addle-brained, they wouldn’t! They’d take it to a fence, and mighty quick, too! Much good would it do ’em, shoved in a cavern! What’s more, Soldier, I’ll allow this Henry looks like he’s a ramshackle sort of a cove, but it ain’t likely as he’d go slumming kens, nor any such lay! That’s pitching it too rum!”

“I wonder!” John said. “No, I should say it wasn’t that. Lord, I wish I knew what took him there last night, and what happened to scare him out of his wits! I’ll ride over there at first light, and see what I can find. There are at least two deep gorges in the hills, for I saw them this morning.”

“Yes, I suspicioned you would,” said Chirk, with a sigh. “So did Rose, and what must she do but make me take my dying oath I’d go along with you, in case you was to tumble down, and break your leg! Which I’d take it kind in you if you wasn’t to do, Soldier, because I’ve got no fancy for hauling a man of your size out of any plaguey cavern!”

“No, I won’t do that,” promised John. “But come, by all means! We may see some sport!”

“We may see a cavern or two,” said Chirk. “I don’t say as we won’t; but as for seeing anything else, I’ll wager you an even coach-wheel we don’t!”

“Done!” said John promptly. “You’d better sleep here tonight. There’s some spare bedding in the room Ben’s in. I’ll fetch it.”

“Don’t you go waking him up! He’s a good lad, but there’s no sense in letting him know more than is good for him—or me!”

“Wake him up! You don’t know him! I might be able to do it if I banged his head against the wall.”

The light of the candle which the Captain carried made Ben stir, and open drowsy eyes, but after muttering something inaudible, he slid back into slumber. The Captain carried a pillow and an armful of blankets into the kitchen, and made up the fire. Chirk, hauling off his cracked boots, said that he had slept on many worse beds.

Turning down the lamp on the table, John bethought him of something, and said: “Chirk, where’s the Wansbeck ford? Do you know?”

Chirk set his boots down carefully side by side. “No, I can’t say as I do. Which ford?”

“The Wansbeck. Have you ever heard of it?”

“Wansbeck,” repeated Chirk, a slight frown between his eyes. “Seems to me as though I know that name, but I can’t just think where I’ve heard it.” He scratched his chin reflectively. “Blessed if I can place it!” he said. “I’d say I’d never been there, but I got a feeling——” An irrepressible yawn broke off this utterance. He shook his head. “I can’t call it to mind, but I daresay it’ll come back to me.”

“Tell me if it does!” John said.

He then withdrew to his own bed, and, no one demanding his attendance on the gate, passed an untroubled night.

He possessed the soldier’s faculty of waking at what hour he chose, and got up at dawn to discover that Chirk shared it. The fire was burning brightly, and the kettle was already singing. John at once made tea, and Chirk, finding some cold bacon in the cupboard, clapped a hunk on to a slice of bread, and consumed it, observing that there was no knowing when he would get his breakfast. He then went off to saddle the mare, while John roused Ben, and told him he was off to exercise Beau. Under his father’s rule, it had always been Ben’s duty to attend to any early wayfarers, and since the dawn-light was creeping in at the little window he raised no demur, merely yawning, and knuckling his eyes.

A few minutes later, the Captain joined Chirk by the hedge skirting Farmer Huggate’s field, Beau snatching playfully at the bit, and dancing on his impatient hooves. He had strapped his great cloak to the saddle, but although he had pulled on his boots, he had not chosen to subject his only coat to whatever rigours might be in store, and he wore only his leather waistcoat over a flannel shirt.

“No sense in going by the road,” said Chirk. “If that highbred ’un of yours can take a fence or two, we’ll edge round by way of the fields.”

“As many as you like!” replied John. “Or a six foot wall, coped and dashed, for that matter!”

“What, with you up, Soldier? Come, now, Mollie! We’d best give that big daisy-cutter a lead!”

The mare nipped neatly over the hedge, and Chirk led the way through the spinney to the fields John had seen from the lane. The mist still lay heavily over them, but it was not thick enough to impede the riders’ progress. They made their way diagonally towards the lane, and came to it half a mile to the north of the farm on the further side of it. The mare went over the bank cat-fashion, but Beau took bank and hedge flying, which made Chirk say, “One of these neck-or-nothing coves! And lucky if the prad ain’t strained a tendon!”

But Beau was sagacious and the Captain clever in the saddle, and the wheel to the left when he alighted was accomplished without any such mishap. The tumbled mass of the hills could now be seen quite clearly ahead, and, after another quarter of a mile, the lane took a sharp turn, beginning the steep ascent over the pass. The Captain reined in.

“We’ll try to the east,” he said. “That’s where I noticed the clefts, and the limestone outcropping. The slope is milder to the west, not so likely, I fancy.”

“Just as you say, Soldier,” responded Chirk amiably.

The bank which had been built up round the farmlands had come to an end a few hundred yards to the south, and there was only a narrow ditch to be stepped over. Beyond it the land was uncultivated. Birch trees reared up out of a mass of tangled undergrowth, and even found a foothold on the precipitous slopes of the escarpment; and every now and then a boulder sticking up out of the ground showed how thinly the earth lay above the rock. At a walking pace, John led the way along the outskirts of the bushes, keenly scrutinizing the face of the hill. This was, in many places, very sheer, and there were several deep indentations where the rock showed as naked as though the covering earth had been scraped from it. John said over his shoulder: “There might be caverns in any of these clefts.”

“Wery likely there are,” replied Chirk, “but it don’t look like anyone’s been near ’em for many a year. Of course, if you’re wishful to push your way through all these brambles, I’m agreeable.”

“No, we’ll go on,” John said.

They had not far to go before, rounding a spur, John saw something that caused him to pull Beau up so sharply that the mare, following him closely, nearly jostled him. “Look!” John said, pointing with his whip. “Someone has been here before us!”

Chirk brought Mollie up alongside, and stared keenly at an unmistakable track, winding through the undergrowth towards the hill. They had reached the big gorge John had seen from the pass; it ran back into the hill, deeply undercutting it; and the rank grass and fading clumps of willow-herb had been trodden down on the rising ground which led into it.

John touched Beau with his heel, saying briskly: “We will tether the horses round the next spur. Come on!”

A few minutes later, as they dismounted, out of sight of the big gorge, Chirk drew his pistols out of their holsters, slipped one into the capacious pocket of his coat, and thrust the other into the top of his breeches. John, unfastening the lantern from his saddle, noticed this, and said instantly: “If you start a cannonade with those damned barking-irons, I’ll murder you! You’re too fond of pulling out a gun! I thought, moreover, that you were sure we should find nothing in the cavern?”

“I daresay we won’t,” replied Chirk, setting the second lantern on the ground, and throwing his greatcoat over the mare. “But, if it’s all the same to you, Soldier, now I’ve seen that track I’ll be easier in my mind if I have my pops handy. If that pair from the Manor was to visit the cavern while we’re there, maybe they’ll save our groats for us!”

He waited while John loosened Beau’s girths, and covered him with his cloak, and then led the way back to the gorge, steering wide of the bushes until he reached the path through them. He had not gone far along this before he stopped, drawing John’s attention to some confused but deep footprints in a patch of softer ground. His face had sharpened, and his quick, frowning eyes glanced about, at the beaten grass, and the bushes encroaching on the track. “Seems to me, Soldier, there’s been several coves here.”