Page:Hornung - Irralies Bushranger.djvu/121

 She was gone before he could reply. She went as she had come, and heard on the way the finish of the funeral march. Then came a difficulty. The screw-hammer was in the tool-box—the tool-box in the store. The store was locked, and the key, no doubt, in Jevons's or George Young's or the new owner's pocket.

She went to her room and racked her brains; all she could think of was a box of boys' tools in her brothers' room. There might be a pair of pincers in that box, and a pair of pincers might do. In any case she would go and look.

The boys were sleeping heavily: they did not hear her open the door, but one of them moved in his sleep as she struck a match and then shaded it with her hand. The tool-box was under their dressing-table. She carried it bodily to her room; there were pincers, and strong ones too. But would they answer?

She crept round the veranda once more, and was about to dart across to the pines