and as it was
long enough to be clinched on the inside of the door, Bob made no
progress whatever in his efforts to force an entrance.

"We can do nothing here," said he, after he had pulled and pushed
until the inside of his hands seemed to be on fire. "We must try the
window."

"But that is so high you can't reach it," said Lester.

"Not from the ground, I know. You will have to hold me up."

Descending from the porch with noiseless footsteps, the boys passed
around to the rear of the cabin, and when Lester had stationed
himself under the window, Bob quickly mounted to his shoulders. He
examined the window as well as he could in the dark, and began to
grow discouraged. It was boarded up with two-inch planks, and they
were held in their places by the largest spikes Don could find at Mr.
Jones's store. Bob pushed his lever under one of the planks, but when
he laid out his strength upon it, Lester rocked about in so alarming
a manner, that Bob lost his balance, and to save himself from
falling, jumped to the ground.

"We might as well go home," said he, rubbing his elbow, which, owing
to Lester's unsteadiness, he had scratched pretty severely on the
rough planks. "If we only had a bundle of straw we'd start a
bonfire."

"It's a pity to go home and leave all these birds here," replied
Lester. "Let's get up on the roof and tear off some of the shingles.
We can climb up by those posts that support the roof of the porch."

"O, it is easy enough to get up there, but what good will it do to
tear off the shingles? We couldn't get the birds out unless one of
us went down after them, and it wouldn't be me, I tell you!"

"We'll not try to get the birds at all. We'll leave the holes open
so that they can escape. Wouldn't that be better than allowing them
to stay here for Dave Evans to make money out of?"

"I should say it would," exclaimed Bob, who always grew angry
whenever anything was said about David's chances of making money.
"But we'll first make one more effort to get the birds ourselves.
Hold me up again and don't wobble about as you did before."

In a few seconds more Bob was again perched upon his companion's
shoulders, and this time he was sure that his efforts would be
crowned with success. The planks were fastened to the window casing,
which, on one side, was too badly decayed to hold the spikes. He
started some of them with the first pull he made at his lever, and,
encouraged by his progress, was about t