Ronicky Doones Treasure | Page 8

precarious and small to an inexpert climber, but to athletic Ronicky Doone as safe as walking up a stairway.
The chance to use his muscles, moreover, after this chilling wait, was welcome to him, and he went up with the agility of a monkey until he reached the smaller window on the third story of the structure. Here he clambered onto the projecting sill and tried to lift the window. It was locked as securely as those of the basement. There was only the chance that it might have been used more recently and had not been rusted into place.
Accordingly, he opened his stout-bladed knife again and inserted it in the crack between the upper and the lower sash, feeling along toward the center until he reached the little metal crossbar which made the windows secure. It resisted the first tentative pressure. But the second and more vigorous effort made the lock give with a faint squeaking sound. In another instant Ronicky had raised the window and thrust his head into the room.
His whole body followed at once, and, lowering himself cautiously into the room, he found himself at last definitely consigned to the adventure, whatever it might bring forth.
A new atmosphere had at once surrounded him. The air was warmer, less fresh, drier. But more than all these things, it was filled with the personality, so to speak, of human beings. The darkness had a quality not unlike that of a human face. It watched Ronicky Doone; it listened to him as he crouched by the wall and waited and listened.
For now, no matter how innocent his errand, the people of the house, if indeed there were more than the girl present, would be amply justified in treating as a criminal a man who had forced his way into their home. If he were shot on sight the law would not by the weight of a single finger attempt to punish the slayers. And still he persisted in the adventure.
Eventually, by whatever uneasy light filtered from the night and through the window, he made out that the room in which he stood was utterly bare of furniture of any kind. It was deserted. By the soft feel of dust beneath his shoe he shrewdly guessed that it had been deserted a matter of many years, and when he tried the boards with his weight his conjecture was further reinforced by the whisper which replied, and which would have grown into a prodigious squeak had he allowed his whole weight to fall.
This particular made his exit from the room a delicate matter. He managed it without noise only by staying close to the edge of the wall, where the flooring, being here firmly attached, could not possibly have any great play. Facing out to the center of the room, since in this manner he could slide closest to the wall, he managed to get to the hall door of the room and thence into the hall without making a whisper loud enough to have caught the attentive ear of a cat.
Once there he paused again, swaying a little, so lightly was he poised, with the rhythm of his breathing. The house below was still as the grave, but presently it was filled with murmurs. For the wind had freshened and was now striking the house with a renewed vigor. His thought flashed back to Lou, standing patiently in the shelter of the pines, and then he turned again to the work before him.
It was peculiarly embarrassing. He could not simply stand in the hall and shout his good intentions and his warnings. That would be sheer madness. There remained nothing but to hunt through the house and hope to find Hugh Dawn, surprise him, perhaps cover him with a gun, and then deliver his tidings at its point. For otherwise Hugh Dawn, no doubt in terrible fear of his old band, would shoot the first stranger on sight.
Ronicky began to slip down the hall. The noise of the wind, starting a thousand creaks in the house, favored his progress immensely. It covered other footfalls, to be sure, but it also covered his own. In order that the noise he made might be completely blanketed by the shakings of the wind, he waited for flurries of the storm and took advantage of them to make swift progress forward, then paused through the intervals of comparative silence.
So he rumbled down the upper hall balustrade until it swerved to the right and down, leading him onto the stairs. In this way he came down to the second story, where, he was sure, he had first heard the footfalls. It was in utter darkness. Yet by striving continually to pierce the wall of shadow he had so far accustomed his eyes to the strain that