"You will see shortly. It's a real old Yorkshire Manor House, dating, I believe, from the Wars of the Roses. There was a lot of fighting went on during those days in Yorkshire, and the original Hest procured a grant of Bowderstyke Valley from Edward IV. But my ancestors came along later and seized a portion of it and built the mansion near the dam. I understand that the Hests and the Towtons fought like cat and dog over the valley. However, the most of the property belongs to me, and I live in this very up-to-date Grange, while they' still cling to the remnants of their lands and to Gerby Hall." "From whom does our criminal friend inherit?" "His grandfather. Hest's father was an officer in the Indian army, and had quarrelled with the old man. Then he died, together with his wife, some spinster he had married at Simla. The twin children were sent home to the grandfather, who brought them up and left the estates to Francis. Now that he has been shown up, he has had the sense, as I told you yesterday, to hand them over to his sister. Perhaps she'll marry and carry on the family." "And Hest?" The Colonel shook his head. "Who knows. He may be caught; on the other hand, he may bolt to South America and become one of those Dictators we read so much about. As The Spider, we know that he has heaps of brains, and a piratical life of that description would suit him exactly." Talking thus, Towton showed Vernon over his small kingdom, and after luncheon the two gentlemen strolled out of the grounds with the intention of taking the winding road to Gerby Hall. On the verge of the moorland they stood for some time looking down into the cup, and Vernon thus procured a bird's-eye view of the valley in the full blaze of the noonday sun. "It's like a bead on a string, Towton," he said after a pause. The description was an apt one, for the hollow into which they were looking was the bead, and the narrow valley, running like an irregular crack to right and left, might be easily compared to a string. From the cup upward to Bolly Dam the valley stretched for a mile and a half, and downward it ran for two miles in a somewhat crooked fashion, to terminate on the verge of the undulating plain, which stretched the further ten miles to the railway station. At the end of the valley--as Towton informed his guest--was a village called, from its situation, Gatehead, and there were four other hamlets beyond, all of which belonged to him. The Hests were reduced to Bowderstyke village alone and to a considerable portion of the moorland on the hither side. "It puts me in mind somewhat of Blackmore's description of Doon Valley," was Vernon's remark when in possession of these facts. "I daresay in the Middle Ages it was quite a robbers' stronghold."