Mamie! Ah!
His sigh turned into a yawn. He realized with the abruptness which
comes to a man who stands alone with nature in the small hours that he
was very sleepy. The excitement which had sustained him till now had
begun to ebb. The free life of the bearded farmer seemed suddenly less
attractive. Bed was what he wanted now, not nature.
He opened the door of the car and lifted William Bannister out, swathed
in rugs. The White Hope gurgled drowsily, but did not wake. Steve
carried him on to the porch and laid him down. Then he turned his
attention to the problem of effecting an entry.
Once an honest man has taken to amateur burgling he soon picks up the
tricks of it. To open his knife and shoot back the catch of the nearest
window was with Steve the work, if not of a moment, of a very few
minutes. He climbed in and unlocked the front door. Then he carried his
young charge into the sitting-room and laid him down on a chair, a step
nearer his ultimate destination--bed.
Steve's faculties were rapidly becoming numb with approaching sleep,
but he roused himself to face certain details of the country life which
till now had escaped him. His earnest concentration on the main plank
of his platform, the spiriting away of William Bannister, had caused
him to overlook the fact that no preparations had been made to welcome
him on his arrival at his destination.
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