He drew a nervous breath, and swung the door swiftly back, as if afraid that his courage would ooze away before he reached the stairway. Sid and Silvey followed very cautiously over the scratched hardwood floor. "Shall I shut the door?" asked Bill as he took hold of the knob. "N-no, we may have to run, yet." They explored the main floor. No one was in the library, no one in the narrow, badly lighted dining-room, and no one in the dingy kitchen. All seemed quiet upstairs. Silvey bolted the basement door that they might not be pursued from that quarter, and Sid, as they returned to the hallway, cut off the avenue of escape to the street. John led the way up the winding, uncarpeted stairs. Silvey followed close at his heels and DuPree lagged in the rear. "Boo-oo!" Sid shouted when they had ascended half the distance. John's pea shooter clattered to the landing. Silvey turned angrily on the miscreant, his face still pale from the fright. "I've a' mind to punch your nose for that! 'S'pose there was really somebody!" At last they reached their goal. Tales of wandering vagrants with lairs in the attics of vacant houses proved untrue in this instance, and John swung back the hinged window in the gable with a sigh of relief. "Jiminy!" he exclaimed as he looked down upon the bright, reassuring play of light and shadow on the lawn and macadam below. "Isn't this great?" The boys stuffed their mouths so full of peas that conversation was impossible and waited for the first victim. A low, heavily laden lumber wagon, drawn by straining horses, creaked down the street. They concentrated their fire upon the driver by tacit consent, for each of the marksmen had had an aversion to causing runaways drilled into him by the hair brush or corset steel method. The teamster, bewildered by the steady rain of missiles, could see no one and departed in an atmosphere of heated profanity. Came delivery boys, wagons, an occasional carriage, and now and then an unprotected pedestrian. Only Louise, as she passed on the way to the grocery, was exempt from assault. The shadows of the house tops and the lindens spread across the street and shut off gradually the flood of sunlight through the attic window. The Mosher four-year-old trotted past, just out of range, on his way towards home and an early supper. John wasted a few ineffectual peas on a pair of sparrows who began a pitched battle on one of the roof gutters. Sport lagged for a few minutes. Then came a great, heavy hulk of a man in overalls, with a battered tin pail swinging from his side, whose lurching step bespoke a violent temper. Silvey raised his pea shooter. "Better leave him alone," Sid cautioned. "Can't do anything to us," John scoffed. "Doors are all locked. And how's he going to tell our mothers when he doesn't know who we are?"