CHAPTER XI.
THE HOUSE OF THE RED DEATH Half-way down the ridge a low word from Croisset stopped the engineer.
Jean had toggled his team with a stout length of babeesh on the mountain top and he was looking back when Howland turned toward him.

The sharp edge of that part of the mountain from which they were descending stood out in a clear-cut line against the sky, and on this edge the six dogs of the team sat squat on their haunches, silent and motionless, like strangely carved gargoyles placed there to guard the limitless plains below.

Howland took his pipe from his mouth as he watched the staring interest of Croisset.

From the man he looked up again at the dogs.

There was something in their sphynx-like attitude, in the moveless reaching of their muzzles out into the wonderful starlit mystery of the still night that filled him with an indefinable sense of awe.