[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

The clearing turned out to be an oval-shaped area, full of grass turning brown and pale with oncoming autumn, though broken here and there with patches of still-green growth. The grass was easily thirty centimeters deep or more, but it lay relatively flat against the ground, and LeMoine crossed the clearing confidently, brushing leaves and dirt from his nice clothing as he did.

On one end of the clearing was a ruined foundation, clearly the site of a house at one time, though the stone foundation was now all that remained. Scorch marks on the stone told the story of the fire that had consumed the house.

Behind the foundation, near one end of the cleared oval, stood...something.

Conners was not quite sure what that something was. They dared not get too close, of course, for fear of giving alarm to LeMoine. From their vantage point at the edge of the clearing, it looked to Conners as if someone had put a large grave marker, or something along those lines, all by itself in the clearing. It was made of stone, multi-sided and rising to a pyramidal peak, but it seemed improbably large. Conners guessed it to be about eight yards tall.

On a sudden thought, Conners considered how far they had come, and where this clearing on the ridge-top would be from the vantage point of the old cemetery below. In that direction the ridge dropped sharply, and Conners was suddenly sure that if one knew just where to look from the cemetery, a viewer could just about spot the top of the stone object from down there.

LeMoine paused at the object, examining it carefully, then continued on, following the ridge line and passing into the woods again on the far side, and Conners and his men continued their pursuit. They covered another mile or so through the wooded ridge-top, until they came to a small open pool of water.

The pool was a small pond, actually, and about twenty meters long and five meters wide. A small rivulet drained it on the north side, and LeMoine turned to followed the past of the rivulet, still trailed by his watchfully quiet observers.

Before long, the ground began to slope downward again, as they reached the north side of the great ridge, and then suddenly the slope grew sharp, and through the half-bare trees of autumn, the river became visible, the same small river that ran eastward until it passed north of Harrystown, and then on eventually to join the Hudson River.

The rivulet did not descend the slope, however. Instead it vanished, as did LeMoine.

At first, the Seven Aces team was flummoxed, but their confusion did not last for long. They tracked the rivulet to its point of disappearance, which proved to be a small cave entrance, a long dark shaft into which the stream of water vanished, to continued its path down toward the river by an underground route.

The tunnel entrance was small, large enough to pass a man if he was willing to crawl, and there were marks in the muddy ground that showed where LeMoine had gone inside.

Conners was now in a quandary. Though they did not wish to lose track of LeMoine, following him into the dark tunnel was simply out of the question. Secrecy would have been impossible, there was no way to know if the passage had other openings or side passages, they did not have the proper equipment for caving (though that had appeared to be so of LeMoine as well), all in all the risk was simply too great.

Conners assigned men to watch the entrance, in case LeMoine reemerged, and he and Lake backtracked to the clearing, to take a closer look at the stone object LeMoine had studied.

MORE LATER.