The Four Pools Mystery

morning and without dismounting called out to the loafers on the veranda to ask if anyone had seen Colonel Gaylord. Two or

ired. Hadn't the Colonel gone

patiently, and I wanted to kn

e had seen him, and at this the stable boy vouchsafed

make me a present of that horse," the landlord

the Colonel did not have a reputation in the county for making pres

time. He was in an almighty hurry when he

otel that afternoon before the rest of the party, had drunk two glasses of brandy, called for his horse, and galloped off without speaking a word to anyone

ow any light on the question of the Colonel's whereabouts, and I

here he is. It's the Colonel I'm after. Neither he nor Cat-Eye

d besides, if the Colonel was with Mose he couldn't get lost if he tried. Mose knew the cave so well that he could find

, was not in the habit of abandoning horses in any such casual manner; and even su

ty for Cat-Eye Mose struck them as peculiarly ludicrous. But I insisted, and finally one of the men who was in the habit of acting as guide, took his feet down from the veranda railin

y pastures to the music of croaking frogs and whip-poor-wills. At first the way was enlivened by humorous suggestions on the part of my companions as to what had become of Colonel Gaylord, but as I did not respond very freely to their bantering, th

ibule to the caverns. With our hands to our mouths we hallooed several times and then held our breath while we waited for an answer. The only sound which came out of the stillness was the occasional drip of water or the flap of a bat's wing. Had the Colonel been lost in any of the winding passages he must have heard us and repli

out if either the Colonel or Mose had returned for it. We set out in single file along the damp clay path, the light from our few candles only serving to intensify the blackness around us. The huge white forms

seven or eight feet above the water along the broken edge of a cliff. A few steps beyond the po

ding to the incline, the guide in front stopped short, and clutc

that?" h

nto the darkness but

ank," he said, raising his candle an

. He was lying on his face at the bottom of the pool, and with outstretched arms was clutching

ging forward. "He's fallen over

y held

t the man to drown in three foot o' water without making a struggle. This ain't no accident. It's

r. We turned back with shaking knees and hurried toward the mouth of the cave, slipping and sliding in the wet clay as we ran. I, for one, felt as though a dozen assassins were following our footsteps in the dark. And all the time I had a sickening feeling that my