“You’re a plucky little rascal,” praised Jo Ann. “If she wants to go with us that badly, we’ll have to let her go, won’t we, Peggy?”
Peggy nodded an emphatic assent.
CHAPTER XIII
INTO THE UNKNOWN
After they had gone to their room that night, the girls continued to talk over their plans for exploring the mysterious black shaft.
“If we’re going to get the benefit of the full moon, we’ll have to go down into the shaft in the next two or three nights, so we might as well go down tomorrow night,” Jo Ann said earnestly. “What do you say to our going tomorrow night?”
Florence and Peggy exchanged excited glances, then replied in unison, “All right.”
The next morning they set to work early to get everything ready for their great adventure.
So it was that just as the bells in the cathedral tower finished chiming the midnight hour, three lithe, knicker-clad figures crept one by one up on the roof and over near the chimney.
“We’ll have to wait a little while,” said Jo Ann, low-voiced. “The moon isn’t up far enough yet for it to throw much light on the rear of the house. I can’t get the other coil of rope out of that back window without more light.” She placed her gloves, flashlight, and rope on the roof beside her, the other girls following her example.
“I’m glad we have to wait,” Florence remarked. “It’s lovely up here in the moonlight. Wouldn’t this be a wonderful place for a roof garden? We could come up here and enjoy it every——”