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2 though they had materialized from the message which had whizzed over telegraph and telephone wires announcing the return of the last of the Corliss blood, and having scarcely glanced about them, the old ones with curiosity, the new ones with startled eyes, plunged forthwith into an orgy of dusting and cleaning and setting in order. Wagons jolted merrily into White Rock to return creaking and groaning under high heaped piles of trunks and chests and boxes.

Not unlike an old castle the big house whose generous size and cost had won it the countrywide name of the Corliss Folly dominated Thunder River and Thunder River Valley from a position high up on the flank of Thunder Mountain. The approach was by means of a sinuous graded roadway, climbing gradually from the lower lands, a road into which had gone many thousands of the Corliss millions. Upon massive granite foundations rose massive walls, monster timbers with the bark and bits of green-grey moss still clinging to them upon the outer surfaces as it held on in the forests, the whole covering the small tableland save for the gravelled courtyard about which it was builded, a courtyard in which a man might wheel a running six-horse team. Just to the north of the house, set back from a cliff's edge and half hidden in a copse of young pines, was Stanton's cabin.

Getting in touch with the railroad office in White Rock, Stanton learned that the overland limited was on time. By way of thanks for the information he jammed the transmitter back upon its nickelled hook viciously, his eyes resting thoughtfully upon his clock.