Breakfast fortified us both greatly, but it also set me to thinking sadly of Aggie, whose morning meal was a crisp slice of bacon, varied occasionally by an egg. I had not Tish’s confidence in her escape. And Tish was restless. She insisted on wandering about the cellar, and near noon I missed her for two hours. When she came back she was covered with plaster dust, but she made no explanation.
“I have been thinking over the situation, Lizzie,” she said, “and it divides itself into two parts. We must wait until nightfall and then search again for Aggie, in case my judgment is wrong as to her escape. And then there is a higher law than that of friendship. There is our duty to Aggie, and there is also our duty to the nation.”
“Well,” I said rather shortly, “I guess we’ve done our duty. We’ve taken a prisoner. I owe a duty to my backbone, which is sore from these rocks; and my right leg, which has been tied in a knot with cramp for three hours.”
“When,” Tish broke in, “is a railroad most safe to travel on? Just after a wreck, certainly. And when, then, is a town easiest to capture? Just after it has been captured. Do you think for one moment that they’ll expect another raid tonight?”
“Do you think there will be one?” I asked hopefully.
“I know there will.”
She would say nothing further, but departed immediately and was gone most of the afternoon. She came back wearing a strange look of triumph, and asked me if I remembered the code Aggie used, but I had never learned it. She was very impatient.
“It’s typical of her,” she said, “to disappear just when we need her most. If you knew the code and could get rid of the lookout they keep in the tower, while I——”
She broke off and reflected.
“They’ve got to change the lookout in the tower,” she said. “If the one comes down before the other goes up, and if we had a hatchet——”