He led the way through the thick gorse and heather until he came to a narrow track which wound across the moor in the direction of the town. There he paused, pointing towards Ellersdeane on the one hand, towards Scarnham on the other. "You see this track, mister?" he said. "You'll notice that it goes to Ellersdeane village that way, and to Scarnham this. Of course, you can't see it all the way in either direction, but you can take my word for it--it does. It comes out at Ellersdeane by the duck-pond, at Scarnham by the bridge at the foot of Cornmarket. People who know it would follow it if they wanted a short cut across the moor from the town to the village--or the opposite, as you might say. Now then, look here--a bit this way." He preceded them along the narrow track until, on an open space in the moorland, they came to one of the old lead-mine shafts, the mouth of which had been fenced in by a roughly built wall of stone gathered from its immediate surroundings. In this wall, extending from its parapet to the ground, was a wide gap: the stones which had been displaced to make it had disappeared into the cavernous opening. "Now then!" said the tinker, turning on his companions with the inquiring look of a man who advances a theory which may or may not be accepted as reasonable, "you see that? What I'd like to know is--is that a recently made gap? It's difficult to tell. If this bit of a stone fence had been built with mortar, one could have told. But it's never had mortar or lime in it!--it's just rough masonry, as you see--stones picked up off the moor, like all these fences round the old shafts. But--there's the gap right enough! Do you know what I'm thinking?" "No!" murmured Betty, with a glance of fear and doubt at the black vista which she saw through the gap. "But--don't be afraid to speak." "I'm thinking this," continued the tinker: "Supposing a man was following this track from Ellersdeane to Scarnham, or t'other way about, as it might be--supposing he was curious to look down one of these old shafts--supposing he looked down this one, which stands, as you see, not two yards off the very track he was following--supposing he leaned his weight on this rotten bit of fencing--supposing it gave way? What?" Neale, who had been listening intently, made a movement as if to lay his hand on the grey stones. Betty seized him impulsively. "Don't, Wallie!" she exclaimed. "That frightens me!" Creasy lifted his foot and pressed it against the stones at one edge of the gap. Before even that slight pressure three or four blocks gave way and dropped inward--the sound of their fall came dully from the depths beneath. "You see," said the tinker, "it's possible. It might be. And--as you can tell from the time it takes a stone to drop--it's a long way down there. They're very deep, these old mines." Neale turned from the broken wall and looked narrowly at the ground about it.