With one effort of his brawny hands, he pulled loose
from the top first the strap of one of the broad upright boards that
formed the walls, then the board itself. He turned sideways and slipped
his bulk through the aperture, the board swinging elastically back into
place.
There was a stove in the squalid little apartment, instead of the open
fires common to the region. It was masked in a dusky twilight, but as his
eyes became accustomed to the obscurity and the disorder, his suspicion
exhaled, and a heavy sense of disappointment clogged his activities like
a ball and chain.
There in his bunk lay Clenk, his eyes shining with the light of fever,
his illness affording an obvious explanation of the precaution of his
comrades in locking the door while they were away at work, at the limits
of the construction line, to protect him from molestation by man or
beast.
Nevertheless, the intruder made an effort to hold his theory together. He
approached the bunk, and with an insidious craft sought to draw the old
man out.
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