“Whew, I should surely hope not!” cried Tom; 13 “for the chances are ten to one he’d be crushed as flat as a pancake before now, with all that timber falling on him. I wouldn’t give a snap of my fingers for his life, Jack.”
“Let’s hope then there’s no other victim,” said Jack. “If there is none, it will let the ice company off easier than they really deserve for allowing so ramshackle a building to stand, overhanging the river just where we like to do most of our skating every winter.”
“Suppose we climb around the timbers and see if we can hear any sound of groaning,” suggested Bobolink, suiting the action to his words.
Several men from the other ice-house reached the spot just then.
Jack turned to them as a measure of saving time. If there were no men working in the wrecked building at the time it fell there did not seem any necessity for attempting to move any of the twisted timbers that lay in such a confused mass.
“Hello! Jan,” he called out as the panting laborers arrived. “It was a big piece of luck that none of you were inside the old ice-house when it collapsed just now.”
The man whom he addressed looked blankly at the boy. Jack could see that he was laboring under renewed excitement. 14
“Look here! was there any one in the old building, do you know, Jan?” he demanded.
“I ban see Maister Garrity go inside yoost afore she smash down,” was the startling reply.
The boys stared at each other. Mr. Thomas Garrity was a very rich and singular citizen of Stanhope.