He had tested his increasing strength and endurance by rowing up the river with Rosabel for a fair view of the hole in the face of the rock--Quill's Window. It was plainly visible from the river, a wide black gash in the almost perpendicular wall that reached well above the fringe of trees and underbrush along the steep bank of the stream. He tried to picture Quill as he sat in his strange abode, a hundred years ago, cowering over the fire or reading perhaps by the light of a huge old-fashioned lanthorn. He thought of him hanging by the neck back in the dark recess, victim either of his own conscience or the implacable hatred of the enemy "down the river." And then there were the others who had found death in the heart of that mysterious cavern,--ugly death. He wondered what the interior of the cave was like, and whether he could devise some means of entering it. A rope ladder attached to a substantial support at the top of the cliff would afford the easiest way of reaching the mouth of the cave,--in fact, he recalled that Quill employed some such means of descending to his eerie home. The entrance appeared to be no more than twenty feet below the brow of the cliff. It would not even be a hazardous undertaking. Besides, if Quill and his successors were able to go up and down that wall safely and repeatedly, why not he? No doubt scores of men,--perhaps even schoolboys of the Tom Sawyer type,--had made frequent visits to the cave. He knew he would be disregarding the command of Alix Crown,--a command that all people respected and observed,--if he passed the barrier and climbed to the top of the rock, but who, after all, was Alix Crown that she should say "no trespass" to the world at large? The thought of Edward Crown wedged in at the bottom of Quill's Chimney, weighted down with stones and earth, alone served as an obstacle to the enterprise. He shrank from certain gruesome possibilities,--such as the dislodgment of stones at the bottom of the crevice and the consequent exposure of a thing that would haunt him forever. And even though the stones remained in place there would still remain the fact that almost within arm's length was imprisoned the crushed, distorted remains of the murdered man. Toward the end of his second week at Dowd's Tavern, he set out to climb to the top of the big rock. He had no intention of descending to the cavern's mouth on this occasion. That feat was to be reserved for another day. Arriving at the gate, he was surprised and gratified to discover that it was unlocked. While it was latched, the padlock and chain hung loosely from the post to which the latter was attached. Without hesitation, he opened the gate and strode boldly into proscribed territory.