"Did they hunt to see if they could find where we stopped?"
"No; I reckon they didn't dare, for fear somebody'd catch 'em. They was settin' up there on the fence, an' if one of the clerks had showed his nose they could have jumped over on the other side mighty quick. I tell you them fellers are up to some mischief."
"What do you mean?" Teddy asked, quickly.
"I heard Skip say he was goin' to burn you out, an' Reddy asked if he counted on doin' it to-night. He 'lowed he wouldn't, 'cause he'd got to go over to Jersey City; but he's bound to, the very first evenin' he can get away without anybody's knowin' what he's up to. He says he could put a lot of papers an' shavin's in these boxes, an' you'd be scorched some before you got out."
Carrots was on the point of laughing at this revelation of Skip's plot, much as if he questioned the latter's courage to do such a thing, when he observed Teddy, who was silent and looking very grave.
"Why, you don't b'lieve they'd dare to burn us out?" he asked in surprise.
"I ain't so sure 'bout that. Skip Jellison's a feller that dares to do 'most anything, if he thinks he can get through with it an' not be caught. It would be a mighty serious scrape for us if the boxes should get on fire while we were here. If any one saw us comin' out they'd say sure we did it. You might talk till you were blue in the face, if they knew that we had had candles here, an' not make 'em think we didn't do the mischief."
"By jiminy! you're right!" Carrots exclaimed, as he began to realize what their position would be under such circumstances. "Don't you think we'd better tell the folks in the store what Skip's countin' on doin'?"
"That wouldn't do any good. He'd swear it wasn't so, an' all we'd make out of it would be our havin' to leave."
"It seems as if that was what we'd got to do anyhow, if he's goin' to set this place on fire."