Ugh! I
hate rats. Don't you?"

"Go ahead," said Henry Burns, stoutly. "We'll follow you. It looks like
a real nice place, don't it, Jack?"

"Perhaps," muttered Harvey.

The girl crept along the platform and descended a short flight of steps
that led to the mill flume--a long box-like sluice-way that carried the
water in to turn the mill wheels. These wheels were silent now, for two
great gates at the end of the flume barred out the waters. The girl
tripped lightly along a single plank that extended over the flume. The
boys followed cautiously.

"Can you swim?" asked Harvey.

"Why, of course," said she.

Presently she paused, took a few steps across a plank that led to a
window, raised that, climbed in and disappeared.

"Come on," she called softly. "I'll show you where to step."

"Whew!" exclaimed Harvey. "This is worse than a gale in Samoset Bay."

"Oh, it's lovely when you get inside," said Henry Burns--"all except the
rats. Come along."

They climbed in through the window, dropping on to a single plank on the
other side, by the child's direction.

"Now stay here," she said, "till I come back."

It was pitch dark and they could not see where they were; but they could
hear her light steps as she made her way in through the mill and
disappeared.

"She'll never come back," exclaimed Harvey. "Say, wake me up with a
good, hard punch, will you, Henry? I know I'm dreaming."

But now they perceived the dull glimmer of a lantern, turned low, being
borne toward them by an unseen hand. Then the figure of the girl
appeared, and soon the lantern's rays lighted up vaguely the interior of
the mill.

They were, it proved, still outside the grinding-rooms, in that part of
the mill where the water would pour in to turn the wheels. It was gaunt
and unfinished, filled with the sound of dripping waters; with no
flooring, but only a scanty network of beams and planking for them to
thread their way across.

They followed the child now over these, and came quickly to a small
sliding door, past which they entered the main room on the first floor.
There, in truth, it would seem they might not be uncomfortably housed
for the night. A small box-stove, reddened in patches by the burning
coals within, shed warmth throughout the room. There were heaps of empty
meal-bags lying here and there. And, for certain, there was no rain
coming in.

And now, having been guided by their new acquaintance to their lodgings,
so strangely,