Alan explained. The other gave a dry little laugh. “That need not hinder you,” said he. “I will send some one to show you the place. Come to the market-square an hour hence and look for a youth with two horses. I think you would pass for a wood-cutter if you had an ax.” Acting on this hint, Alan provided himself with ax and maul, and found in the place appointed a serving boy riding one horse and leading another. He had reason to be glad of the rough life of his boyhood, for he had ridden all over the moors, bareback, on just such wiry half-broken animals, and the road they now took was not an easy one. At last they left the horses in a dell at the foot of the ledges and scrambled up to a small stone building near the top of the mountain, half hidden among evergreens. Its door was gone and its roof half fallen in, but in it could be seen a stone altar and various tools and utensils, wood cut and ready for burning. Evidently some one had been using the place--in fact, some one was here now. As Alan stood in the doorway a figure rose from a pile of leaves in the corner. “Vanni!” said Alan under his breath. “Oh, he can be trusted,” said Giovanni, with a glance at the guide. “I have been here two days. This was Archiater's private workshop. The mountain people think it is haunted, so that it is a good place to hide. I was not pleased when I found that your clerk had taken it for his own. I lay upon the roof for two hours yesterday watching him. Having an errand at Rheims I thought I would come along and see what had happened to you.” Alan had as yet no right to tell the most important thing that had happened. “I have not been here before,” he said. “Simon has put me off, and he does not know I am here now.” “Has he shown you his findings? He took a bag away with him--a heavy one.” “Only some minerals which are worth more than he thinks. I have been working with them more or less. He is mightily curious about the action of the furnace. I make a guess he is going to try to test the ore himself.” “There is a donkey-load of it here,” said Giovanni, tilting with his foot a stone in the floor. Under it gleamed a mass of irregular shining fragments and yellow lumps of stone. Alan picked up one and scraped it, struck it with a hammer, rubbed it across a chip of wood, “Guy was right,” he said, “it is not gold. I can prove that to the fellow if he gives me a chance.” “What shall you do?” “I am not sure. Are you safe here?” “So long as they do not know I am here. Master Gay and his son are at Rheims, and I am to join them. If you will come to-morrow or the day after we can go together. I will show you a short way over the mountains that Cimarron found when we were here. Stefano knows of my coming, and I shall see him to-night.” Alan had been thinking. “Vanni, I will do this. I will go with you to-morrow if I can, but if I do not meet you here before noon you will know that I must stay on. Will that answer?”