“Aha!” he ejaculated suddenly, “look—the cellar window.”
“Smashed in—I see,” spoke Hiram.
“One pane of glass, yes,” proceeded Bruce excitedly. “And look, too, stains of blood on the fragments of glass and the window frame. Oh, say, I know! There’s a cistern right under that window. I remember it perfectly and—Hiram, help knock out the rest of the window. I’m going to get into the house that way.”
“And drop into a cistern!” railed Hiram.
“It’s an old leaky one and was dry as a bone, I remember, when I was here with Wertz.”
They smashed out the window frame with a piece of plank they found near by. Bruce let himself cautiously backwards through the aperture. Hanging by both hands, he let go.
“It’s all right,” his voice sounded, hollowly. “Throw me down some matches.”
Hiram awaited the next developments with some impatience, and considerable curiosity. Then he saw a hand grasp the inside window frame, then another, and he tugged at the shoulders of his struggling comrade and pulled him up into daylight.
“For gracious sake, where have you been? In some dirty hole, I do declare!” cried Hiram.
“It was dirty, but I don’t care about that,” panted the other youth. “Ouch!” and he proceeded to rub some dirt out of his left eye.