“That’s the dope.”
“But suppose he’s a friend, as I say.”
“Well, we aren’t going to kill him. And I have a hunch that if we don’t stop him this way he’ll skin out as quickly as an enemy. For he’s trying to keep in the dark. So do your stuff with the rope. And old Goliath and I will be on top of him before he quits spinning.”
The giant grumbled sleepily as he followed the leader up the ladder into the haymow. Such monkey-work, he said, just to keep a gander from being stolen. If it was such a precious gander, why didn’t we take it to bed with us? What was the sense of losing all this sleep for nothing?
But pretty soon the grumbling voice died away. And how very quiet the barn was now! Like a tomb. Yet there was plenty of racket where I was, for the barrel acted like a sounding board for my galloping heart. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! That’s the way it sounded in my ears. Not that I was scared, though. I just didn’t like being alone.
Squatting under a barrel isn’t the most comfortable job in the world, let me tell you. I soon found that out. My bones began to ache. Nor did squirming around help very much. I thought of Poppy, stretched out on the haymow floor with his face in the ladder hole. How comfortable for him! Somehow I always did manage to get the unluckiest jobs.
What was that? A floor board had creaked. As though some one had gently put his weight on it. There! A footfall. No doubt of it. More footfalls. Each as easy and as guarded-like as you please.
Then deep silence. The deadliest and awfullest silence I ever had known. What was the matter with Poppy? Why didn’t he flash the light? Had he and old Goliath both gone to sleep? It would seem so.
The gander hadn’t made a peep. So I knew it was still on its roost. Why didn’t the man grab it, I thought. I wanted him to. Then maybe it would squawk loud enough to wake up the gallery. Poppy sure was a peach to go to sleep at a time like this. What I’d tell him.
Phew! Of all the funny smells. I got my nose closer to the bunghole. Some kind of a drug-store smell, I told myself.