Page:Boys of Columbia High on the Ice.djvu/139

Rh "Nothing much. You see Frank was pointing out that big smoke-stack two miles or so off there, and saying that it belonged to the penitentiary over at Lauderville."

"Is that a fact? Phew! I didn't dream we had come that far. Perhaps that runaway scamp did come this way when he broke out. Looks like it would be good country for him to hide in, all right."

Lanky glanced around rather timidly as he spoke, as though he half expected to see some ferocious figure crouching in the nearby bushes, and fastening a burning gaze upon them as they lingered.

"This is as far as we ought to go," remarked Frank.

"Thanks for that thought, old fellow. I'm nearly all in, what with that long pull, and uphill all the way. Glad to rest up a bit before turning back. Wonder if we could find a farmhouse around here, I'm nearly starved after such unusual exercise, and I happen to have some money in my jeans, it being Christmas you know, when the coin circulates in most homes."

"I have a lunch in my pocket if we fail to locate any house. True, if Lanky here is real hungry, he could take it in three bites; but we'll make him put a curb on that ferocious appetite of his, for once," Frank remarked, with humor in his eye.

"But I saw a farmhouse a mile or two back. Let's