Page:Aladdin O'Brien (1902).pdf/224

 his shoulder he might have seen a face at one of the windows of the house.

He found a door of one of the stables unlocked, and went in, leading his horse. Within there was a smell of hay. He closed the door behind him, unsaddled, and fell to groping about in the dark. He wanted several armfuls of that hay, and he couldn't find them. The hay kept calling to his nose, "Here I am, here I am"; but when he got there, it was hiding somewhere else. It was like a game of blindman's-buff. Then he heard the munching of his horse and knew that the sought was found. He moved toward the horse, stepped on a rotten planking, and fell through the floor. Something caught his chin violently as he went through, and in a pool of filthy water, one leg doubled and broken under him, he passed the night as tranquilly as if he had been dosed with laudanum.