“What are you barring it behind us for?” asked Val.
“Don’t want any accidents,” Bar began, and then he added, “Hush, we’re not inside here a minute too soon.”
Indeed they were not, for one of the Academy trustees, unable to be easy in his mind over the events of the previous night, had come out for a scouting expedition of his own.
Slowly, with heavy and circumspect tread, the good citizen was making his rounds of the old edifice, and now he carefully tried the fastenings of that lower door and peered anxiously in through the curtainless windows.
Very still kept the two adventurers, and both felt an unusually active pumping at their hearts, until they were sure that every door and window within his reach had been examined by the careful trustee, and that he had taken his satisfied departure.
“Now, Val,” said Bar, “we’re safe enough. Come on.”
Up they went, first into the main hall, then into the second story, then up the creaking and short-turning flight of steps which led to the lower deck of the steeple bell-tower.
“This west window,” said Bar, “towards the roof, is just the thing for our windmill. The wind has a clean sweep across the deck, for there isn’t a bit of sash all around.”
“There used to be, in winter,” said Val, “but I s’pose they think this deck is roof enough.”
“So it is,” said Bar, as he worked steadily and rapidly away, “but nobody can see this west window from the ground, unless they get over into the graveyard back of the sheds.”