“And Mrs. Fred was there with them?” demanded Donald.
“Yes, I just heard her giving the last instructions, when my fingers touched the key in the lock,” Adrian told him. “After that all I had to do was to close that door and turn the key; and thinking it best to keep it, I put the same in my pocket, so that no one is likely to let then out.”
“Bully for you, Adrian! You’re the fellow who can do things! I never heard of such a smart trick!” said Donald.
“Oh! don’t mention it,” remarked the other; “why, even Billie could have turned it, if he knew as much as I did about the inside arrangements of that long house, and didn’t get lost in the twisting passages leading from one part to another.”
“Listen! what’s that I hear right now, Adrian?”
“Sounds like somebody might be trying to kick the toes off their boots against a door, don’t it?” chuckled the other. “Let ’em go it while they’re young; but it’ll take a heap of knocking to burst that stout door open. My dad knew what he was doing when he picked the oak out that it’s made from. But who’d ever dream that I’d make such a use of it as to shut up three treacherous punchers,
as well as my own aunt by marriage, in that place.”
“One thing sure, they won’t die from starvation,” remarked Donald, as he continued to listen to the medley of sounds that came from the interior of the building but which could not keep up long.
“Let’s find Uncle Fred,” suggested Adrian.
“Wonder what he’ll say when he learns that you’ve gone and clipped the talons of his wife,” remarked Donald; “and if the marks on his face stand for anything I reckon now that poor old Uncle Fred has felt those same talons more than a few times, when the lady wished to make her words more forceful.”