“Yep. Just seeing if he is fixed for the night. The boy’s been very quiet, and I was just wondering——”
At that moment rapid footsteps sounded in a hall outside of the room in which Benito and Frank sat, causing the two men to look in alarm at each other. Jim strained forward to see what was to happen next.
A door opened hurriedly, and a rough-looking man with a week’s growth of beard burst into the room. Benito sprang to his feet.
“What is it, Marcy?” he snapped.
“That kid is gone!” the man gasped. “Pulled up some boards out of the floor and dropped into the cellar. We got to get him, or he’ll find the——”
“Never mind,” shouted Benito. “You go down the hole after him. Frank and I will look around the grounds. That kid must not get away. What’s that?”
“That” was an accident of serious nature. Jim had forgotten the porch he had been standing on, and he had pressed too near the house. The boards at that point were rotten, and with a crash that sounded like the explosion of a cannon they went through.
8. The Old Captain
At the sound caused by Jim’s fall through the rotted boards the three men paused for an instant in stunned surprise. But it was only a brief second. Suspecting that some enemy had been spying on them the men made haste to pursue.
Marcy, upon the repeated demand of Benito, went back down the hall to capture Don, but the chief and Frank rushed to the window. Jim’s right leg had plunged into the hole as far as his knee, and he was at first frantic, believing that he could not get out in time, but realizing that losing his head would not help him, he calmed himself and pulled more easily. His leg came out of the hole just as Benito and Frank sighted him from the window.