“There,” says Mark, “n-now we got to see if there’s another stairway down here.”
We scurried into the other parts of the cellar, but there wasn’t another stairs. Anybody that got us now would have to come the way we did, or through a window, and the cellar windows were little, narrow ones that neither Jethro nor the Man With the Black Gloves could have got through to save their lives.
We were safe for a while, anyhow.
“Here’s a lamp,” says I; “let’s light her up. Somehow I feel easier in my mind when it hain’t pitch dark.”
“Go ahead,” says Mark, so I lighted up, and just then somebody came pounding down the stairs and stumbled over the tin things that had given us away, and banged against the door.
Of course the door wouldn’t open.
“Somebody in here,” yelled Jethro. “They got the door fastened.”
“Bust it,” says the Man With the Black Gloves.
Jethro tried that, but we didn’t worry much, knowing what was against it.
“Can’t budge it,” says he.