Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/188

 led to a small cellar stairway. Down into this cave he went, letting the door fall shut after him.

In that dark blackness he waited, a crumpled, trembling wretch, for whatever fate might have in store for him.

How long he crouched there Beaudry never knew. At last reason asserted itself and fought back the panic. To stay where he was would be to invite destruction. His attackers would come to the window. The barricaded door, the displaced rug, the trapdoor, would advertise his terror. The outlaws would break in and make an end of him.

Roy could hardly drag his feet up the stairs, so near was he to physical collapse. He listened. No sound reached him. Slowly he pushed up the trapdoor. Nobody was in the room. He crept up, lowered the door, and replaced the carpet. With his eyes on the window he put back the furniture where it belonged. Then, revolver in hand, he sat in one corner of the room and tried to decide what he must do.

Down in the cellar he had been vaguely aware of a dull pain in his shoulder and a wet, soggy shirt above the place. But the tenseness of his anxiety had pushed this into the back-