She knew that she would find her uncle’s house at the end of the street.  Mr. Templeton had told her that, and had described it so that she could have no trouble in knowing it.  And as she rode on, making the curve of the long, crooked lane which had come to be known as Dead Man’s Alley, she found time to wonder that such a town could be so silent and deserted with the sun so high in the sky.  For she had not learned that here men did in their way what men do in larger cities, that they turned the day topsy turvy, that the street seethed with surging life through late afternoon and night and the dark hours of the morning, that the saloons stood brightly lighted then, that their doors were filled with men coming and going, that games ran high, voices rose high, while life, as these men knew it, ran higher still.

At last she came to Henry Pollard’s house.  It stood back from the street in a little yard notable for the extreme air of untidiness the rank weeds gave it and for its atmosphere of semi-desertion among its few stunted, twisted, unpruned pear trees.  The fence about it had once been green, but that was long, long ago.  The doors were closed, the shades close drawn over the windows, the house still and gloom-infested even in the sunlight.

Stronger and higher within her welled her misgivings; for the first time she admitted to herself that she was sorry that she had tried to do this thing which Mr. Templeton had told her was madness.  She hesitated, sitting her horse at the gate, with half a mind to whirl and ride back whence she had come.  And then, with an inward rebuke to her own timidity, she dismounted and hurried along the weed bordered walk, and knocked at the door.

There came quick answer, a man’s voice, heavy and curt, crying: 

“Who is it?”

“Are you Mr. Pollard?” she called back, her voice a little eager, more than a little anxious.

“Yes.”  There was a note as of excitement in the voice.  “Is that you, Winifred?”

“Yes, uncle.  I ...  I ...”

She faltered, hesitated, and broke off pitifully.  She had heard the eagerness in Pollard’s voice, guessed at what it was that he was thinking, knew that now she would have to tell him that she had failed in the errand which he had entrusted to her, that she had let a man rob her of the five thousand dollars of which he stood so urgently in need.  Oh, why had she attempted to do it, why had she not listened to Mr. Templeton?  And, now, what would her uncle say?

“Just a minute, Winifred.  I’m a little under the weather and am in bed.  Now.”  She heard no footsteps; yet there was the noise of a wooden bar being drawn away from the door.  “Come in.  You’ll pardon me, being in bed, my dear.  And fasten the door after you, will you, please?”

She stepped across the threshold and into the darkened house, her heart beating quickly.  As she slipped the bar back into its place she saw that there was fastened to the end of it a cord which passed through a pulley over the door and then ran down the hallway, disappearing through another door at the left.  So, following the cord, she went on slowly.