The aged McAndrews removed his pipe from his mouth to voice dissent. “How about the scienteefic chappies?” he asked.

“Well, except for them,” conceded the host, somewhat discomfited, while the older man replaced the pipe and regarded him with stern gravity. Possibly to cover up his mistake, he went rapidly on with explanations for Hunter’s benefit.

“Two science professors they are, that have a cabin on one of the hills. For near a year they’ve been there, studying the glassy forts, I hear. I never saw them, myself, for they get everything they need over at Dykirk.”

A term in his speech caught Hunter’s interest. “The glassy forts?” he repeated, interrogatively.

“There’s some piles of old stone ruins on some of the hilltops around here,” the innkeeper explained. “Some of them have parts of stones all melted into glass. Lightning did it, I suppose. Around here we call them the glassy forts, and it’s them that these men are working with, digging and such.”

“Oh, I see,” said Hunter. More slowly, he continued, “Do you know, I’d like to see some of them if it wouldn’t take too long. Do you suppose I could, in a day?”

“Well, you can if you’re a good climber,” his host informed him. “Lowder Hill is the nearest to here, and they say there’s such ruins on top of it. It’s not so steep, either. There’s another hill right next to Lowder, Kerachan Hill, but it’s too high and rough to get up and down in a day, hardly. It’s on Kerachan that the science men are staying, I think. You’d best try Lowder, though.”

“I’ll stay here tomorrow, then,” Hunter told him, “and make the trip. I’m so infernally tired of pedaling that a day of tramping will be a rest.”

The prospect had intrigued the young student, and before retiring for the night he acquired enough information to guide him on the next day’s trip. Also, he had been furnished with a number of weird anecdotes concerning the glassy forts, which were evidently objects of local superstition.

The sun was an hour high the next morning when he left the inn, a small package of lunch in his pocket. He swung quickly through the village and tramped steadily over stony roads and rough moor toward the dark, looming bulk of the western hills, whose sides were almost completely hidden by dense forests of fir.