The house occupied by the manager of the Drummond Syndicate in Redlands--the former residence of a local lawyer and justice of the peace--was not large, but had an imposing portico of wooden Doric columns, which extended to the roof and fronted the main street.

The all-pervading creeper closely covered it; the sidewalk before it was shaded by a row of broad-leaved ailantus.

The front room, with French windows opening on the portico, was used by Colonel Courtland as a general office; beyond this a sitting-room and dining-room overlooked the old-fashioned garden with its detached kitchen and inevitable negro cabin.

It was a close evening; there were dark clouds coming up in the direction of the turnpike road, but the leaves of the ailantus hung heavy and motionless in the hush of an impending storm.

The sparks of lazily floating fireflies softly expanded and went out in the gloom of the black foliage, or in the dark recesses of the office, whose windows were widely open, and whose lights Courtland had extinguished when he brought his armchair to the portico for coolness.