But come along.

There must be an end to this, somewhere." Ten minutes later Prescott and Darrin felt that they had come to the end of the mystery.

For the faint trail had led them up a slight, stony slope, and now the two boys lay flat on the ground.
Below them, in a bush-clad hollow, two miles from the world in general, stood a little, old, ramshackle shanty.

The location was one that seekers would hardly have found without a trail to lead them to it.
To the door of this shanty a broad-shouldered, rough-looking and powerful fellow of forty had just come.

The man, who was poorly clad, wore brogans, and held in his right hand a weighty, ugly-looking club.