Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/378

 Now, town tradition undeviatingly held, the old Captain sat at an open window throughout the month of August, with a spy-glass in one hand and a shot-gun loaded with rock salt in the other. There were signal wires, too, the town boys said, running mysteriously into the house, where so much as the touch of an intruding foot rang a little alarm-bell and brought forth the owner and the shot-gun.

All this did not serve to discourage Lonely. If anything, it only tended to make him more fixed in purpose. He first spent several afternoons in reconnoitring, guardedly exploring the fence and prodding about for possible loop-holes. None was to be found; so, foiled here, he resorted to strategy.

He dug up and washed a goodly sized bunch of horse-radish, and, placing this neatly in the bottom of a basket, boldly opened the great, sagging front gate, and as boldly went down the dilapidated old board-walk. He wore, as he did so, his meekest and most wistful look of innocence.

But close beside his straight and narrow path he noticed a score or two of mellow red