“I don’t fancy starting in there at night,” said Tom to himself.  “Guess I’d better stay somewhere around here until morning, and then venture in.  But the question is where to stay?”

The country was deserted, and for a mile or more he had seen no houses.  He kept on for some distance farther, the dusk falling rapidly, and when he was about to turn back to retrace his way to the last farmhouse he had passed, he saw a slab shanty at the side of the road.

“That’s better than nothing, provided they’ll take me in for the night,” murmured Tom.  “I’m going to ask, anyhow.”

He found the shanty to be inhabited by an old man who made a living burning charcoal.  The place was not very attractive, but Tom did not mind that, and finding the charcoal-burner a kindly old fellow, soon made a bargain with him to remain all night.

Tom slept soundly, in spite of his strange surroundings, and after a simple breakfast in the morning inquired of the old man the best way of penetrating the forest.

“You’d best strike right along the old wood road,” said the charcoal-burner.  “That leads right to the lake, and I think will take you where you want to go.  The old mansion is not far from the lake shore.”

“Near the lake, eh?” mused Tom as he started off, after thanking the old fellow.  “Now I wonder if I’d better try to get to it from the water or the land side?”

He found it impossible to ride fast on the old wood road, and when he judged he was so close to the lake that the noise of his motor-cycle might be heard, he shut off the power, and walked along, pushing it.  It was hard traveling, and he felt weary, but he kept on, and about noon was rewarded by a sight of something glittering through the trees.

“That’s the lake!” Tom exclaimed, half aloud.  “I’m almost there.”

A little later, having hidden his motor-cycle in a clump of bushes, he made his way through the underbrush and stood on the shore of Lake Carlopa.  Cautiously Tom looked about him.  It was getting well on in the afternoon, and the sun was striking across the broad sheet of water.  Tom glanced up along the shore.  Something amid a clump of trees caught his eyes.  It was the chimney of a house.  The young inventor walked a little distance along the lake shore.  Suddenly he saw, looming up in the forest, a large building.  It needed but a glance to show that it was falling into ruins, and had no signs of life about it.  Nor, for that matter, was there any life in the forest around him, or on the lake that stretched out before him.

“I wonder if that can be the place?” whispered Tom, for, somehow, the silence of the place was getting on his nerves.  “It must be it,” he went on.  “It’s just as Rad described it.”

He stood looking at it, the sun striking full on the mysterious mansion, hidden there amid the trees.  Suddenly, as Tom looked, he heard the “put-put” of a motor-boat.  He turned to one side, and saw, putting out from a little dock that he had not noticed before, a small craft.  It contained one man, and no sooner had the young inventor caught a glimpse of him than he cried out: