id Sid to Silvey.

"All right," Silvey nodded apathetically. He peered in at the window.
"You don't think there's anyone inside, do you, fellows?"

The trio listened intently. "Might be someone upstairs," suggested Sid.
"Tramps or something."

"Shucks," broke in John impatiently. "You're all 'fraid cats, that's
what you are."

"Go on in, yourself," Bill retorted quickly.

He drew a nervous breath, and swung the door swiftly back, as if afraid
that his courage would ooze away before he reached the stairway. Sid and
Silvey followed very cautiously over the scratched hardwood floor.

"Shall I shut the door?" asked Bill as he took hold of the knob.

"N-no, we may have to run, yet."

They explored the main floor. No one was in the library, no one in the
narrow, badly lighted dining-room, and no one in the dingy kitchen. All
seemed quiet upstairs. Silvey bolted the basement door that they might
not be pursued from that quarter, and Sid, as they returned to the
hallway, cut off the avenue of escape to the street. John led the way up
the winding, uncarpeted stairs. Silvey followed close at his heels and
DuPree lagged in the rear.

"Boo-oo!" Sid shouted when they had ascended half the distance.

John's pea shooter clattered to the landing. Silvey turned angrily on
the miscreant, his face still pale from the fright.

"I've a' mind to punch your nose for that! 'S'pose there was really
somebody!"

At last they reached their goal. Tales of wandering vagrants with lairs
in the attics of vacant houses proved untrue in this instance, and John
swung back the hinged window in the gable with a sigh of relief.

"Jiminy!" he exclaimed as he looked down upon the bright, reassuring
play of light and shadow on the lawn and macadam below. "Isn't this
great?"

The boys stuffed their mouths so full of peas that conversation was
impossible and waited for the first victim. A low, heavily laden lumber
wagon, drawn by straining horses, creaked down the street. They
concentrated their fire upon the driver by tacit consent, for each of
the marksmen had had an aversion to causing runaways drilled into him by
the hair brush or corset steel method.

The teamster, bewildered by the steady rain of missiles, could see no
one and departed in an atmosphere of heated profanity. Came delivery
boys, wagons, an occasional carriage, and now and then an unprotected
pedestrian. Only Louise, as she passed on the way to the grocery, was
exempt from a