“Now,” she breathed, “we are safe, unless—”
She broke short off. A thought had struck her all of a heap.
“Unless what?” Jeanne asked breathlessly.
“Unless this place has a night watchman. If it has, and he finds us here at this hour of the night we will be arrested for trespassing. And then we will have a ride in a police wagon which won’t be the least bit of fun.”
“No,” agreed Jeanne in a solemn tone, “it won’t.”
“And that,” whispered Florence, as she tiptoed about examining things, “seems to be about what we are up against. I had thought the place a mere unfurnished wooden shell. That is the way the blockhouse was. But see! At the end of this room is a fireplace, and beside it are all sorts of curious cooking utensils, great copper kettles, skillets of iron with yard-long handles and a brass cornhopper. Coming from the past, they must be priceless.”
“And see! There above the mantel are flintlock rifles,” Jeanne put in. “And beside the fireplace are curious lanterns with candles in them. How I wish we could light them.”
“We dare not,” said Florence. “But one thing we can do. We can sit in that dark corner where the moon does not fall, and dream of other days.”
“And in the meantime?” Jeanne barely suppressed a shudder.
“In the meantime we will hope that the guard, if there be one, goes out for his midnight lunch and that we may slip out unobserved. Truly we have right enough to do that. We have meant no harm and have done none.”