At length he threw away
the useless implement in disgust.
"I was never cut out for a burglar, that's certain!" he exclaimed.
"There's one thing I can do, though, and I will, too. I can smash down
the door, and get inside that way."
An axe lay beside a pile of wood near the forward end of the raft; and
armed with this, the boy began to rain vigorous blows upon the stout
door. Before these it quickly yielded, and he thus gained the interior.
Once inside, he gazed about him blankly. Nothing looked familiar;
nothing was as he had expected to find it. There was the partition,
with a door in it, to be sure, and there was the small room beyond the
main one; but there was also another partition, and another door beyond
this. There had been but two rooms in the _Venture's_ "shanty," while
here were three. Then again the "shanty" that he had helped to build
was only boarded up on the outside, while the interior had been left
unceiled, with the frame exposed. The interior on which he now gazed
was wholly ceiled, so as to make the walls of double thickness, and
conceal every bit of the framing.
The perplexed boy noticed these details at a glance; and as he stood
staring blankly about him, the uncomfortable suspicion began to force
itself into his mind that perhaps this was not the _Venture_ after all.
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