Page:Stringer - Lonely O'Malley.djvu/88

 through an old stovepipe above, the roof well shored up with purloined fence-boards, the entrance necessarily commanding a secret view of the river. In this cave Lionel Clarence took much delight, and countless colds in the head.

Even Annie Eliza was not made acquainted with the secret passage leading to this lonely refuge, meekly and faithfully as she followed Lionel and the New Boy in all less mysterious adventures. Although Annie Eliza had even sniffed knowingly at their clothes, and recognized the telltale odor of Indian tobacco, she had remained discreetly silent and loyal. Lonely would have tabooed her heartlessly but for her new-born devotion to Alaska Alice, whom she minded and wheeled and carried about crooningly, thus giving Lonely an unlooked for chance for wandering and adventure, in which, when possible, the Preacher's son joined him.

All might have gone well but for the fact that one warm afternoon Mrs. Sampson went to the back hall window, to open the sash, while she finished her upstairs sweeping. Her startled glance happened to fall on the