A key was thrust into the lock and to Don’s dismay it was turned with a sharp clicking noise. A chuckle came from the other side.
“Just doing a little locking of my own,” Dennings informed him. “You’ll just stay where you are for some time, boy. Don’t waste your time calling or pounding. No one will hear you out here.”
He walked away from the outside of the door and Don could hear him going down the front stairs. He shook the door, after drawing his bolt, and found that it was tightly locked. Then he turned to examine the room, a task that did not take him long. It was unfurnished, and the two windows were boarded up tightly. There was only the one door and a single deep closet with a shelf. Otherwise there was not a single object in the room.
“Well here’s a pretty mess,” reflected Don, in disgust. “Ran my head right into a noose. So the major is deeply concerned in all of this business, eh? Not a doubt in the world but what he knows very well where the colonel is, too. If I get a chance I’ll certainly ruin their little game.”
He set to work to find a way out of his prison, but after an hour of searching he gave up. The door was solid and the windows were well boarded. There were no other openings. He stopped and began to consider seriously his position. As there was no fire any place in the house he was beginning to feel chilled through, and he fell to rubbing his hands.
Three hours passed in this way and it grew darker in the room. The only light which entered the place filtered in through cracks in the boards, and it was not until some snow drifted in that Don realized what was causing the darkness. The threatened snowstorm had arrived.
Once more he looked around the room and his eyes fell on the closet. He opened the door and looked around the little compartment, but the walls were as firmly built as the rest of the room, and he had no hope of breaking through them. Then he looked at the ceiling above the shelf and a new thought struck him.
“Perhaps the ceiling above the shelf is not so strong as the rest,” he thought. “Might as well give it a try.”
The next problem was to climb upon the shelf. He tried the strength of the boards by hanging on them with all his weight suspended and he found that they would stand the strain. Using the door frame for his hands and feet he scrambled up on the shelf and sat there panting for a moment, to regain his breath. Then he reached up and pressed the ceiling with his hands.
The plaster was soft and the ceiling springy. It was evident that a layer of lath was the only covering, and he felt confident of breaking through that. Sliding forward on his back he raised one foot and sent his heel crashing against the ceiling of the closet. The heel broke through the soft plaster and the wood above splintered loudly. A shower of powdery plaster sprinkled over him, but he did not care for that. Much encouraged he sent another kick and still another against the ceiling, until his feet had crashed out a jagged hole in the plaster.