place is it? As soon as I began pounding on the door, the voices died out and the light vanished from the window."

"Are you positive this is La Vita Place?" asked Matt, with a sudden thought that they might have made a mistake.

Ferral himself had said that he had never been to the ranch before, and it was very possible he had gone wrong in following directions.

"Call me a lubber if I ain't," answered Ferral decidedly. "Come around front and I'll show you."

Together the three boys made their way back through the gloomy grove, turned the corner of the building and brought up at the front door. The house continued dark and silent.

Ferral scratched a match and held the flickering taper at arm's length over his head.

"Look at that printing above the door," said he.

There, plainly enough, were the rudely painted words, "La Vita Place."

"We're takin' our scope of cable this far, all right," observed Ferral, dropping the match and laying a hand on the door-knob, "and I guess I've got as good a right in Uncle Jack's house as anybody. Open up, I say!" he shouted, and shook the door vigorously.

No one answered. Not a sound could be heard inside the building.

Matt stepped back and ran his eye over the gloomy outline of the structure.

It was a two-story adobe, the windows small and deeply set in the thick walls. The window through which the light had been seen was now as dark as the others. This was as puzzling as any of the other events of the night, but it could be explained. Those inside were not in a mood to receive callers; but, even if that was the case, why could not some one come to the door and say so?

"I'm going to get in," said Ferral decidedly, stepping back as though he would kick the door open.

"Wait a minute," suggested Matt, "and let's see if the kitchen door isn't unlocked."

"It isn't—I've tried it."

"How about the windows?"

"The lower ones are all fastened."

"Then I'll try one of the upper ones."

There was a tree close to the corner of the house with a branch swinging close to the window through which the boys had seen the light. Watched by Ferral and Carl, Matt climbed the tree and made his way carefully out along the branch. When opposite the window, he was able to step one foot on the deep sill and balance himself while lifting the sash.

"It's unlocked!" he called down softly. "I'll get inside and open the door."

"There's no telling what you'll find inside there," Ferral called back. "We'll all climb up and get in at the window, then look through the house together."

Carl was beginning to have "spooky" feelings again. Not wanting to be left alone by the front door, he insisted on being the next one to climb the tree. Matt, who had got into the house, reached out and gave his Dutch chum a helping hand. When Ferral came, they both gave him a lift, and all three were presently inside the up-stairs room.

"There's been somebody here, and not so very long ago," said Matt. "I smell tobacco smoke."

"It's t'ick enough to cut mit a knife," sniffed Carl.

"I'll strike a match and look for a lamp," said Ferral, "then we can see what we're doing."

As the little flame flickered up in his hands, the boys took in the dimensions of a small, square room. A table with four chairs around it stood in the center of the room, and on the table was a pack of cards, left, apparently, in the middle of the game. In the midst of the cards stood a lamp.

Ferral lighted the lamp.

"Four people were here," said he, picking up the lamp, "and it's an easy guess they can't be far away. We'll cruise around a little and see what we can find."

Opening the only door that led out of the room, Ferral stepped into the hall. Just as he did so, a sharp, incisive report echoed through the house. A crash of glass followed, and Ferral was blotted out in darkness.

CHAPTER IV.

THE HOUSE OF WONDER.

"Ferral!" cried Matt in trepidation.

"Aye, aye!" answered the voice of Ferral.

"Hurt?"

"Not a bit of it, matey. Strike me lucky, though, if I didn't have a tight squeak of it. The lamp-chimney was smashed and the light put out. If the bullet had gone a few inches lower, the lamp itself would have been knocked into smithereens and I'd have been fair covered with blazing oil. That flare-up proves the skulkers are still aboard." He lifted his voice. "Ahoy, there, you pirates! What're you running afoul o' me like that for? I've a right here, being Dick Ferral, of the old Billy Ruffian. Mr. Lawton's my uncle."

Silence fell with the last word. There were no sounds in the house, apart from the quiet, sharp breathing of the three boys. Outside the faint night wind soughed through the trees, making a sort of moan that was hard on the nerves.

Carl went groping for Matt, giving a grunt of satisfaction when he reached him and took a firm hold of his coat-tails.

"Ve pedder go py der vinder vonce again," suggested Carl, catching his breath, "make some shneaks py der pubble und ged apsent mit ourselufs. Ven pulleds come ad you from der tark it vas pedder dot you ain'd aroundt. Somepody don'd vant us here."

"I'm here because it's my duty," said Ferral, still in the hall, "and by the same token I've got to stay here and overhaul the whole blooming layout—but it ain't right to ring you in on such a rough deal. You and the Dutchman can up anchor and bear away, Matt, and I'll still be mighty obliged for your bowsing me off that piece of wall, and sorry, too, you couldn't be treated better under my uncle's roof."

"You're not going to cut loose from us like that, Ferral," replied Matt. "We'll stay with you till this queer affair straightens out more to your liking."

"But the danger——"

"Well, we've faced music of that kind before."

"Bully for you, old ship!" cried Ferral heartily. "I'll never forget it, either. Now, sink me, I'm going through this cabin from bulkhead to bulkhead, and if I can lay hands on that deacon-faced Sercomb, he'll tell me the why of this or I'll wring his neck for him."

Matt stepped resolutely into the hall and ranged himself at Ferral's side. Ferral was drawing a match over the wall. The gleam of light would make targets of the boys for their unseen enemies, but there would have to be light if the investigation was to be thorough.

No shot came.

"Either we've got the swabs on the run," muttered Ferral, "or I'm a point off. The lamp's out of commission, so I'll leave it here on the floor. We've got to find another."

"Be jeerful, be jeerful," mumbled Carl. "Efen dough ve ged shot fuller oof holes as some bepper-poxes it vas pedder dot ve be jeerful."

"Right-o," answered Ferral, moving off along the hall. "Only two rooms on this floor," he added, looking around; "we'll go into the other and try for a lamp we can use."

The door of the second room opened off the hall directly opposite the door of the first. The boys stepped in and found themselves in a bedroom. There was a rack of books on the wall, a trunk—open and contents scattered—carpet torn up and bed disarranged.

"Looks like a hurricane had bounced in here," remarked Ferral.

"Here's a candle," said Matt, and lifted the candlestick from the table and held it for Ferral to touch the match to the wick.

When the candle was alight, Ferral stepped to the table and looked at a portrait swinging from the wall. It was the portrait of a gray-haired man. A broad ribbon crossed his breast and the insignia of some order hung against it. In spite of the surrounding perils, Ferral took off his hat.

"Uncle Jack," he murmured, his voice vibrant with feeling. "The warmest corner of my heart is set aside for his memory, mates. I wish I'd done more for his comfort when he was