“Next time I take you out, Bert,” said Beveridge, “I 'll bring along a pneumatic mattress and a portable bath-tub and a Pullman nigger to carry your things.”

“That's all right, Bill. Wait till you try it yourself. There are spiders in the hay, millions of 'em,—and if there's anything I hate, it's spiders.”

“Here,” said Harper, “take some o' my pillow. I ain't having no difficulty.” He threw over a roll of cloth, which Wilson, after some feeling about, found.

“Hold on, Harper, this isn't your coat?”

“No, it's part of a bundle of rags I found here.”

“What's that!” Beveridge exclaimed. “A bundle of rags?”

“Feels like part of an old dress,” said Wilson.

“Give it here, Bert. I 'll take what you've got too, Harper.” With the cloth under his arm Beveridge found the ladder and made his way to the floor below. Then he lighted a match.

The others crawled to the edge of the mow and looked down into the cavernous, dimly lighted space.

“Look out you don't set us afire, Bill.”