A group came down the street for the widow's
house; they were laughing and shouting, and they carried lanterns; away
from them Barry slipped like a ghost and stood in the shadow of the house.
There might be other such crowds, and they were dangerous to Barry, so now
he hunted for a means of breaking into the house of the widow unseen. The
windows, as he went down the side of the building, he noted to be high, but
not too high to be reached by a skillful, noiseless climber. In the back of
the house he saw the kitchen door, illumined indeed, but the room, as far
as he could see, empty.
Then very suddenly a wave of silence began somewhere in a side of the house
and swept across it, dying to a murmur at the edges. Barry waited for no
more maneuvers, but walked boldly up the back stairs and entered the house,
hat in hand.
The moment he passed the door he was alert, balanced. He could have swung
to either side, or whirled and shot behind him with the precision of a
leisurely marksman, and as he walked he smiled, happily with his head held
high.
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