Octopus Books Inc.-William Heinemann Inc.

PREFACE The demands made by a work of this nature upon the generosity of speciaUsts are very numerous, and the Editor would be wanting in all title to the generous treatment he has received were he not willing to make the fullest possible acknowledgment of his indebtedness. His thanks are due...

Chapter One The lake was cold, black, evil, no more than five hundred yards in length, scarcely two hundred in breadth, a crooked stretch of glassy calm shadowed by the mountainsides that slipped steeply into its dark waters and went plunging down. There were no roads, no marked paths around it;...