“I say do it, Patsy, and be quick about it,” Chick declared, when unable to discover a sign of any person in the front part of the house.
“I’m with you,” Patsy muttered. “Head straight across the lawn to the east end of the veranda.”
They vaulted the wall while he was speaking, then covered the distance at record speed. After waiting and listening for a few moments, they felt sure that they had not been seen. To climb the trellis and reach the veranda roof then was child’s play, and both then began an inspection of the curtained windows.
Chick found one through which he could work his knife blade, thrusting up between the sashes, and in a very few moments he had succeeded in throwing the lock.
Noiselessly raising the lower section, he then pushed aside the curtain and peered in, finding that the window[Pg 37] opened into the hall on the second floor. Listening, he could faintly hear voices from below, but could not distinguish whose, nor what was said.
“Come on, Patsy,” he whispered, with a significant glance at him. “Have a gun ready. I’ll lead the way.”
“You won’t be far in advance,” muttered Patsy dryly.
Crawling quietly through the window, one after the other, they tiptoed toward the broad, angular stairway leading to the lower hall.
“Keep on, old top,” whispered Patsy, now with a revolver in each hand. “The sooner we get them the better.”
“I think so, too.”