The strain became unbearable. All of a sudden something seemed to
break within me, and my muscles began to ripple and shake. I had no power
to stop it. More than that, the feeling was so terrible that I knew I would
welcome discovery as a relief.
"Sh-s-s-h!" whispered some one below.
I turned my eyes down to the peep-hole. Bud had moved over squarely into
the light of the door. He was bending over something. Then he extended his
hand, back uppermost, toward Buell. On the back of that broad brown hand
were pieces of leaf and bits of pine-needles. The trembling of my body had
shaken these from the brush on the rickety loft. More than that, in the
yellow bar of sunlight which streamed in at the door there floated
particles of dust.
Bud silently looked upward. There was a gleam in his black eyes, and his
mouth was agape. Buell's gaze followed Bud's, and his face grew curious,
intent, then fixed in a cunning, bold smile of satisfaction. He rose to his
feet.
"Come down out o' thet!" he ordered, harshly. "Come down!"
The sound of his voice stilled my trembling. I did not move nor breathe. I
saw Buell loom up hugely and Bud slowly rise. Herky-Jerky's boots suddenly
stood on end, and I knew then he had also risen. The silence which followed
Buell's order was so dense that it oppressed me.
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