He got down to the ground and began to examine the cellar windows. They
seemed to be fitted with iron bars set into the solid masonry. He went
all around the house and found each one unshakable, until he reached
the last at the back. There he found a bit of stone cracked and
loosened and it gave him an idea. He set to work with his few tools,
and finally succeeded in loosening one rusted bar. He was much hindered
in his work by the necessity of keeping a constant watch out, and by
his attempts to be quiet. There was no telling when Link and Shorty
might come to feed their captive and he must not be discovered.
It was slow work picking away at the stone, filing away at the rusty
iron, but the bars were so close together that three must be removed
before he could hope to crawl through, and even then he might be able
to get no further than the cellar. The guy that fixed this house up for
a prison knew what he was about.
Faintly across the mountains came the echo of bells, or were they in
the boy's own soul? He worked away in the hot sun, the perspiration
rolling down his weary dirty face, and sometimes his soul fainted
within him. Bells, and the sweet quiet church with the pleasant daily
faces about and the hum of Sunday School beginning! How far away that
all seemed to him now as he filed and picked, and sweated, and kept up
a strange something in his soul half yearning, half fierce dread, that
might have been like praying only the burden of its yearning seemed to
be expressed in but a single word, "Mark! Mark!"
At last the third bar came loose and with a great sigh that was almost
like a sob, the boy tore it out, and cleared the way. Then carefully
gathering his effects, tools, milk bottle and cap together, he let them
down into the dungeon-like blackness of the cellar, and crept in after
them, taking the precaution to set up in place the iron bars once more
and leave no trace of his entrance.
Pausing cautiously to listen he ventured to strike a match, mentally
belaboring himself at the wasteful way in which he had always used his
flash light which was now so much needed and out of commission. The
cellar was large, running under the whole house, with heavy rafters and
looming coal pits. A scurrying rat started a few lumps of coal in the
slide, and a cobwebby rope hung ominously from one cross beam, giving
him a passing shudder. It seemed as if the spirit of the past had
arisen to challenge his entrance thus. He took a few steps forward
toward a dim staircase he sighted at the farther end, and then a sudden
noise sent his heart beating fast. He extinguished the match and stood
in the darkness listening with straining ears. That was surely a step
he heard on the floor above!