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 bungalow where it sat high above Careyville with its back to the mountain.

At the entrance to this wood-road, the auto slowed in a sightless downpour, blinded by lightning, deafened by a thunder that shook the hills, struggling against a stampede of wind and rain that had gone wild with the night. A hand raised the storm curtains; the door opened; Barney jumped out; and the cold rain doused him dripping wet in an instant, as if buckets had been emptied on him. He hunched up his shoulders, pulling down his hat, and he ran for the shelter of the trees, crouching. A bright explosion of lightning that burst the sky showed a blanched world of rock and field in gray greens, the woods before him lashed and reeling, the road ankle-deep in a muddy torrent. It was all blotted out instantly in a roar of thunder. When the next stab of lightning cut the darkness, the auto had vanished down the mountain-side and Barney was hidden by the woods.

He had run to them as instinctively as he