Not a ripple of a leaf showed above him as he passed straight up the
mountain to the old house, for the watchful eye looking out to see.
Billy was a great deal like an Indian in his goings and comings, and
Billy was wary. Had he not seen the winking light? Billy was taking no
chances. Smoothly folded in his hip pocket he carried a leaf of the New
York paper wherein was offered a large reward for information
concerning jewels and bonds and other property taken from the Shafton
country home on pretense of setting free the son. Also there was a
stupendous reward offered for information concerning the son, and
Billy's big thought as he crept along under the trees with all the
stealth of a wild thing, was that here was another thirty pieces of
silver multiplied many times, and he wasn't going to take it! He
could, but he wouldn't! He was going to give these folks the
information they wanted, but he wasn't going to get the benefit of it.
That was going to be his punishment. He had been in hell long enough,
and he was going to try to pull himself out of it by his good works.
And he would do it in such a way that there wouldn't be any chance of
the reward being pressed upon him. He would just fix it so that nobody
would particularly know he had anything to do with the clews. That was
Billy all over. He never did a thing half way. But first he must find
out if there was anybody about the old house. He couldn't get away from
those three winks he had seen.
So, feeling almost relieved for a moment Billy left his wheel on guard
and crept around to his usual approach at the back before he came out
in the open. And then he crept cautiously to the cellar window where he
had first entered the house. He gripped Pat's old gun with one hand in
his pocket, and slid along like a young snake, taking precaution not to
appear before the cellar window lest his shadow should fall inside. He
flattened himself at last upon the grass a noticeless heap of gray
khaki trousers and brown flannel shirt close against the house. One
would have to lean far out of a window to see him, and there he lay and
listened awhile. And presently from the depths beyond that grated
window he heard a little scratch, scratch, scratch, tap, tap, tap,
scratch, tap, scratch, tap, steadily, on for sometime like his heart
beats, till he wasn't sure he was hearing it at all, and thought it
might be the blood pounding through his ears, so strange and uncanny it
seemed. Then, all at once there came a puff, as if a long breath had
been drawn, like one lifting a heavy weight, and then a dull thud. A
brief silence and more scratching in soft earth now.