The trail led out through the grove to the rain-
drenched pasture, where it disappeared, and, instead of one house,
he saw three, half hidden in foliage and all facing in the
opposite direction. They stood upon the crest of a hill fronting
the road, and he realized that the pool might be the bathing-place
for the inmates of one or all of them.
Up past the grazing stock he went and around to the front of the
nearest residence, which proved to be a low, rambling, bungalow
affair with many outhouses smothered in a profusion of vines and
fruit-trees. Evidently it was unoccupied, for heavy wooden
shutters barricaded the windows, and no one answered his knock,
although some pigeons perched upon the tile roof cooed at him in a
friendly manner. He struck across lots to the next house, but met
with no better success, and he approached the third dwelling with
a certain hesitation, for it was his last chance. It was more
pretentious than the rest, and stood proudly upon the highest
point of the ridge, up which ran a private road guarded by twin
rows of stately royal palms, whose perfectly rounded trunks seemed
to have been turned upon some giant lathe. The house itself was
large, square, and double-galleried. It was shaded by lofty hard-
wood trees and overlooked a sort of formal garden, now badly in
need of care.
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