It was just about this time that the crowd had received a letter from Cranny telling them to be on the lookout for him. And now the Tacoma boy was actually there.
“Hooray for the Rambler Club!” repeated Cranny. “What a perfectly rippin’ time we’re goin’ to have, fellows! Just let me get a horse, a few shootin’ irons—then I’ll be so jolly happy I’ll——” He paused. “Just happened to think o’ that makin’-a-livin’ business,” he explained.
“Oh, cheer up!” laughed Don. “Come along. We’ll conduct you through the palace.”
“I’d be more cheerful than a song-bird in spring,” declared Cranny, “if I only knew what to do.”
The tread of many feet and the sound of voices echoed uncannily through the rooms as the lads passed from one to another. Everywhere their eyes lighted on broken plaster, decaying boards, and many a thick festoon of cobwebs dimly revealed itself in shadowy corners. Up a twisting stairway they climbed to the second floor. Here Cranny, to his surprise, always found himself coming upon unexpected rooms and passageways,—these last, dark, somber-looking places, where the accumulated dust of ages rose up in choking clouds.
“Been up on the roof yet, fellows?” he asked, suddenly noting in one of the rooms a ladder resting against a trap-door.
“Of course. It was about the second thing we did,” answered Tom. “There’s a dandy view, too.”
“Me for the roof, then,” declared Cranny.
He briskly crossed the floor; sprang up the rungs of the ladder; then the door, in response to a vigorous shove, banged on the roof, while a flood of whitish light poured through the opening.
Cranny immediately scrambled upward. For an instant his figure was sharply outlined against the blue sky, then he disappeared from view.