The first thing to do after getting ashore and seeing the precious canoe safely landed was to find the house.  As yet they had seen no trace of it, so heavy was the growth of trees every-where, except at the abutment, which was built of stone, covered with earth and a thick sod.  From here an old road led away from the river through the woods, and up it Mr. and Mrs. Elmer and Captain Johnson now walked, Mark and Ruth having run on ahead.  The elders had gone but a few steps when they heard a loud cry from Ruth, and hurried forward fearing that the children were in trouble.  They met Ruth running back towards them, screaming, “A snake! a snake! a horrid big snake!”

“I’ve got him!” shouted Mark from behind some bushes, and sure enough there lay a black snake almost as long as Mark was tall, which he had just succeeded in killing with a stick.

Mrs. Elmer shuddered at the sight of the snake, though her husband assured her that it had been perfectly harmless even when alive.

Not far from where the snake had been killed they found a spring of water bubbling up, as clear as crystal, from a bed of white sand, but giving forth such a disagreeable odor that the children declared it was nasty.  Mr. Elmer, however, regarded it with great satisfaction, and told them it was a sulphur spring, stronger than any he had ever seen, and that they would find it very valuable.  They all drank some of the water out of magnolia-leaf cups; but the children made faces at the taste, and Mark said it made him feel like a hard-boiled egg.

A path leading from the spring at right angles to the road from the river took them into a large clearing that had once been a cultivated field, and on the farther side of this field stood the house.  As they approached it they saw that it was quite large, two stories in height, with dormer windows in the roof, but that it bore many signs of age and long neglect.  Some of the windows were broken and others boarded up, while the front door hung disconsolately on one hinge.

The house stood in a grove of grand live-oaks, cedars, and magnolias, and had evidently been surrounded by a beautiful garden, enclosed by a neat picket-fence; but now the fence was broken down in many places, and almost hidden by a dense growth of vines and creepers.  In the garden, rose-bushes, myrtles, oleanders, and camellias grew with a rank and untrained luxuriance, and all were matted together with vines of honeysuckle and clematis.

The front porch of the house was so rotten and broken that, after forcing their way through the wild growth of the garden, the party had to cross it very carefully in order to enter the open door.  The interior proved to be in a much better condition than they had dared hope, judging from the outside appearance of the house.  It was filled with the close, musty odor common to deserted buildings, and they quickly threw wide open all the windows and doors that were