I watched them turn out into the road and walk down past the orchard.
“Well,” I said to myself, “it’s now or never.” So I dropped down out of the tree and ran to the house. I could see in the window by getting on tiptoe, and I didn’t lose a second doing it. There was the room, drawing-tables and tools and all, and right in the middle of the floor was what I came to discover—there stood the Tidd turbine!
I didn’t wait a jiffy more than necessary, and anybody that had tried to race me back to the fence would have had to go pretty fast to come in even second. I don’t know how I got over—half fell and half jumped, I guess—but, anyhow, I got over, and there I was safe and sound, but shaking all over as if I had a chill.
It took me maybe twenty minutes to get back to where Mark Tidd was waiting. He was sitting with his back against the fence and an old piece of paper spread on his knee, drawing something.
“Well,” I says, “here I am—and it’s there.”
He seemed pleased like to think he’d been right in all his surmises, and nodded.
“What you doin’?” I asked.
“Makin’ a map,” says he. “I’ve been prowlin’ around, and here’s the lay of the land. It’ll be a handy thing when we come to p-p-plannin’ how to git the engine away.”
“Which,” says I, “don’t look like sich an easy job as some I’ve heard of.”
He stuffed his map in his pocket, and when we saw Henry C. Batten and the dog come back from their walk we hustled down to our boat and rowed home. It was late in the afternoon when we got there and I was most starved—I’d hate to have had to feed Mark—for we hadn’t had anything since breakfast.