Almost under them, at the base of the steep mountainside, a white farmhouse lay near an orchard of gnarled apple trees fronting on a yellow dirt road running north and south. Across the road was a rambling red barn, a farmyard full of chickens, and the remains of an old lime-kiln.
“That’s the place I saw yesterday,” said Reno. “Nobody there at night but the old guy and his wife—the hired man lives up at the Center. I found out that much.”
“I’m starved,” muttered Lew. “How long have we got to wait?”
“Aw, these hicks go to bed early. If we wait a couple hours, they’ll be so much asleep you couldn’t wake ’em up with a cannon. We’ll take anything they got, and then beat it over to Pennsylvania for a while. Lots of good places across the river where we can lay low—this district will be gettin’ too hot to hold us pretty soon.”
Nothing further was said for some time. Smoke curled from the chimney of the farmhouse; evidently the people inside were eating dinner. A hearty country meal it would be, Blackie thought, and his mouth watered as he visioned smoking joints of meat, thick bread and jam, rich creamy milk, golden-crusted slabs of pie, corn and squash and pickles and beets, chocolate cake—— He tried to pass the time thinking of all the dishes in the world that he liked; but soon had to stop because of the clawing pangs of hunger that gripped him.
Reno and Lew lay watching the house like wolves awaiting the coming of night before attacking a defenseless sheepfold. Once a horse-drawn buggy with one occupant passed along the road, driving away from the Center that showed dimly as a cluster of white houses and a church tower to the north, where a bridge spanned the stream. The sun disappeared; a few lights blinked forth in the house below, giving it a cheerful, friendly look amidst the mysterious dark of the valley.
Blackie, left to himself, thought of nothing but the chances of escape from the ugly pair he had been thrown in with by the fortunes of the road. If he could squirm away unnoticed, and make a sudden dash down the side of the cliff, he might get clear and find his way to one of the houses in the valley. He was more than willing to risk a broken ankle in the dark to win free of the tramps. He rolled over as quietly as he could, and began to worm his way across the ground; but he made the mistake of putting his weight upon a branch which snapped and gave way beneath him, and Reno jumped up and caught him by the collar with a snarl.
“No tricks like that, my hearty!” he muttered. “Try that again, and you’ll be black and blue for a month! I’ll skin ya, so I will!”
Blackie bowed his head under a rain of blows that stunned him and made his ears ring. He lay quietly after that, and did not move until, after about an hour, the two men rose to their feet with an air of determination. By this time the lights in the farmhouse below had disappeared, one by one; evidently the inhabitants were all fast asleep. Reno led the way to the left, picking his path by the aid of Blackie’s flash-lantern shielded under his coat; Blackie followed, still stumbling beneath the weight of the blankets; while Lew brought up the rear, cursing softly when he stumbled on the treacherous ground. They picked their way down the steep slope of the mountainside, and after half an hour of slow going, came out on the dirt road near the barn. Here Reno snapped off the light, and without even a moon to guide them the tramps, like the thieves and night marauders they were, sneaked cautiously through the orchard until they reached the back of the farmhouse, and stopped a few yards from the low cellar-door.
Here they paused for a brief consultation, and then Reno crept toward the house, while Lew watched him, meanwhile holding Blackie’s arm in a vise-like grip. No sooner had he vanished in the direction of the house than the night was full of the rousing bark of a dog.