Here he stopped to get his breath and his bearings.
From his halting-place the mine head-quarters building lay just below
him, at the right of the tunnel entrance to the mine. It was a long log
building of one story, with warehouse doors in the nearer gable and
lighted windows to mark the location of the offices at the opposite end.
Making a detour to dodge the electric-lighted tunnel mouth, Judson
carefully reconnoitred the office end of the head-quarters building.
There was a door, with steps giving upon the down-hill side, and there
were two windows, both of which were blank to the eye by reason of the
drawn-down shades. Two persons, at least, were in the lighted room;
Judson could hear their voices, but the thick log walls muffled the
sounds to an indistinct murmur. On the mountain-facing side of the
building, which was in shadow, the ex-engineer searched painstakingly
for some open chink or cranny between the logs, but there was no avenue
of observation either for the eye or the ear. Just as he had made up his
mind to risk the moonlight on the other side of the head-quarters, a
sound like the moving of chairs on a bare floor made him dodge quickly
behind the bole of a great mountain pine which had been left standing at
the back of the building.
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