No one had told me, and I had met with no encouragement to ask.

I felt myself sliding amid pitfalls.

My own act might precipitate the very doom I sought to avert.
Yet I must preserve my self-possession and answer all questions as truthfully as possible lest I stumble into a web from which no skill of my own or of another could extricate me.
"Fastening my horse to one of the pine trees in the thickest clump I saw--he is there now, I suppose--I crept up to the house, and tried the door.

It was on the latch and I stole in.

There was no light on the lower floor, and after listening for any signs of life, I began to feel my way about the house, searching for the intruder.