that we will
have to turn burglar, eh? Well---they say all's fair in love and war,
you know. Come on! Let's break into this house and see what we
can find?"

CHAPTER X

PLANNING THE ESCAPE

No breaking in was found necessary. The back door opened readily
enough. The boys stepped into the rude kitchen and closed the door,
listening for a moment in the silence. A meal of sorts was still
spread on the plain deal table, but it had evidently been there for
some days. The place seemed to have been deserted by its inhabitants
without any preparation or warning. The stillness was uncanny, and
Bob's voice sounded unusually loud as he remarked:

"Not even a cat left behind."

The poverty of the former occupants was apparent from a glance about
the room, on one side of which was a half-cupboard, half-wardrobe, the
open door of which showed sundry worn, dirty garments, little more
than collections of rags.

"There is another room in front," remarked Bob. "From the look of
things here, though, we can hardly expect to find any clothing that
will serve our purposes."

Dicky stepped toward the door leading to the front of the building.
"It is as silent as the grave, without a doubt," he said as he turned
the handle and pushed gently. The door would not open.

"Stand back and let me shove," said Bob.

He put his shoulder against the door and threw his weight against
it. The flimsy lock broke at the first strain, and Bob caught himself
just in time to save himself from falling. No sooner had the boys
gained an entrance to the room than they saw they were not the only
occupants of it. On one side stood a low bed, upon which rested the
wasted form of an old woman, her white hair pushed smoothly back
from her forehead, but spread in tumbled disorder on the pillow.

The old woman was dead.

The locked front door showed she had shut herself in to die, and
had died alone. How long she had lain there, as if asleep, for so
she appeared, was a matter of conjecture. The thin, gnarled hands,
brown with outdoor labor, were folded on her breast. Her face
showed that calm with which death stamps the faces of long-suffering,
simple-minded peasant folk. The patient resignation through the
long years of toil, through years, perhaps, of pain and suffering,
suffering more likely than not borne in silence, taken as a matter
of course---all seemed to have culminated in the quiet peace on the
seamed dead face.

No wo