Page:Mulford--The Bar-20 three.djvu/333

Rh "He'd more likely feel somethin', rather than see it," snickered a third, who thereupon had a thrashing coming his way, but did not know it as yet.

The head popped back into the darkness above it, the trapdoor fell with a bang, and sudden stamping was followed by the fall of a heavy body. Furious, high-pitched cursing roared in the room above until lost in a bedlam of stamping feet and shouting voices.

"He ought to kill them three fools," growled Hopalong, indignant for the moment; and then he shook with silent laughter. Wiping his eyes, he fell to gathering more wood for his fire, careless as to noise in view of the free-for-all going on over his head. Removing the plug from the canteen he poured part of the oil over the piled-up wood, on posts, along beams and then, saturating his neckerchief, he rubbed it over the floor boards. Wriggling around the pile of sand he wet the outer wall as far up as his arm would reach, soaked two more posts and another pile of shavings and chips and then, corking the nearly empty vessel, he felt for a match with his left hand, which was comparatively free from the kerosene, struck it on his heel and touched it here and there, and a rattling volley from the besiegers answered the flaming signal. Backing under the floor he touched the other pile and wriggled to the wall directly under the loophole. Again and again the canteen soaked the kerchief and the kerchief spread the oil, again a pile of shavings leaned against a wetted post, and another match leaped from a mere spot of fire into a climbing sheet of flame, which swept up over the loop hole and made it useless. As he turned to watch the now well-lighted trapdoor, there came from the east, barely