Chapter 7.

A WONDERFUL FIND.

SOON the stars filled the sky. An owl hooted, and the wind whispered something in the trees overhead. But the four children did not see the stars nor hear the owl and the wind. They were tired out. They slept solidly, and though Dinah was almost smothered with the rug over her head, she did not wake or move.

Kiki slept too, her head under her wing. She was perched on a branch of the birch-tree just over Jack's head. She awoke when she heard the owl, and hooted back softly. Then she put her head back under her wing and slept again.

When dawn came the children were still asleep. Kiki awoke before they did. She stretched out first one wing and then another. She erected the feathers on her head and shook them. Then she scratched her neck thoughtfully and gazed down at Philip.

Lizzie the lizard was also awake and was running over the rug that covered Philip. She came to where Philip's feet stuck out and disappeared under the rug there. Kiki's sharp eyes watched the little moving b.u.mp she made under the rug as she made her way all the way up Philip's body and appeared by his neck.

"Wipe your feet," said Kiki suddenly to the lizard. "How many times, how many times have I told you to wipe your feet?"

Lizzie was startled. She leapt from Philip's neck on to Jack and stood half hidden in his hair, looking up into the trees, though she could focus nothing there. Kiki, annoyed at seeing Lizzie daring to tread on her beloved master, gave an exasperated squawk and flew down to peck the lizard, who promptly disappeared under the rug again.

Kiki landed heavily on Jack's middle and gave a vicious peck where the rug covered Philip's right leg, for she could see the moving b.u.mp there that meant the lizard was running downwards. Both Jack and Philip awoke with a start.

They stared up into the trees, both amazed to see green leaves waving above them. Then they turned their heads and saw one another. In a flash they remembered everything.

"Couldn't think where I was," said Jack, and sat up. "Oh, Kiki, it's you on my middle, is it? Do get off. Here, have some sunflower seeds and keep quiet, or you'll wake the girls."

He put his hand in his pocket and took out some of the flat seeds that Kiki loved. She flew up to the bough above, cracking two in her beak.

The boys began to talk quietly, so as not to disturb the girls, who were still sleeping peacefully.

"Gosh, I feel better now," said Jack, stretching out his arms. "I was so tired last night I could have cried. What about you, Philip?"

"I'm all right too," said Philip, and he yawned hugely. "But sleepy still. Well, we haven't got to get up for breakfast. We shan't hear any gong sounding here. Let's have another snooze."

But Jack was now too wide awake to snooze. He slipped out from under the rug and went to wash himself at the spring. He gazed downwards and saw the spire of smoke rising up just as it had yesterday.

"Those fellows are up and about," he said to himself. "Must be getting pretty late in the morning, I suppose. The sun's fairly high. Blow! I forgot to wind up my watch last night."

Soon the girls woke up and were amazed to find they had slept solidly all the night through and had apparently not even stirred. Dinah looked to see where Lizzie was.

"It's all right," said Philip amiably. "She's down one of my socks. I like the feel of her tiny fingers on my leg."

"Ugh! You're awful!" said Dinah. "Well, I'm going to wash. Then we'll have breakfast - only cake and biscuits, I'm afraid."

Unfortunately they were all so hungry that they devoured the cake, the biscuits and the rest of the chocolate too. Now there was no food left at all.

"We'll just have to do something about it - about the food question, I mean," said Dinah. "Even if it means eating your lizard, Philip."

"She wouldn't make more than a mouthful, would you, Liz?" said Philip. "Hallo - what's that?"

"That" was the sound of voices. Hurriedly the four children got up, and, dragging their rugs, macks and other clothes with them, they ran quickly to the cowshed. They dumped the things into the last stall and crouched there, panting.

"Have we left anything at all out there?" whispered Jack.

"Don't think so," whispered back Philip. "The gra.s.s is a bit flattened, that's all. Let's hope they won't notice it."

There was a crack in the side of the old cowshed and Jack put his eye to it. They had only just got away in time. The men were coming slowly up towards the birch-trees, talking. They came to where the children had slept the night before.

The men walked right past the spot, then one of them stopped and looked back with a puzzled expression. He gazed at the place where the children had slept. What he said they couldn't hear, but he pointed to the flattened gra.s.s. Both men then walked back and looked earnestly down at it.

"What's done that?" asked the man called Juan.

"Queer," said the other man. He had a big fleshy face with full lips, and smallish eyes set too close together. "Some animal, perhaps?"

"Why - that's big enough for an elephant or two to lie on!" said Juan. "Shall we have a look round?"

The other man looked at his watch. "No. Not now," he said. "When we come back, perhaps. We've got a lot to do today. Come on. It can't be anything really."

They went on again and were soon lost to sight among the trees. "I'm going to get up a tree with my field-gla.s.ses and follow them with them as they go," said Jack to the others. "We must make certain they really are gone before we expose ourselves to view."

He went cautiously out of the shed and ran quickly to a tall tree. He was up it in a trice, for he was an excellent climber. He sat at the top, balanced in a swaying branch, his legs tightly wound round it. He put his gla.s.ses to his eyes.

As soon as the men came out on to the gra.s.sy, flowery part of the hillside he saw them. They did not take the same direction as the children had taken the day before, but kept on the flowery part for a long time. Jack could see them easily with his gla.s.ses. Then they took out a map or paper and stood there looking at it between them.

"Not sure of their way," thought the boy. "Ah - now they're off again."

The men now began to climb steeply and Jack watched them as long as he could see them. But then they rounded a great crag of rock and disappeared from sight. He slid down the tree.

"Gracious! We thought you'd gone to sleep in the tree," said Dinah impatiently. "I'm tired of waiting in this filthy shed. Have the men gone?"

"Yes. They're far away now," said Jack. "It's quite safe to come out and have a look round. They didn't go the way we did. I watched them climbing very steeply up the mountainside. Come on - let's get off whilst we can."

"We could go and have a look inside the aeroplane now," said Dinah. So they all hurried down to the valley, and came to where the big aeroplane stood on its enormous wheels. The four children climbed up the steps into the c.o.c.kpit.

"The big crate's gone," said Jack at once. "I wonder how they got it out. It must have been empty or they could never have managed it between them. Look - there's where we hid the other night!"

Philip and Jack hunted all round the plane for food or information. But there was no food at all, and not a sc.r.a.p of paper that would give them any idea as to who the men were or why they had come there.

They all climbed out again. "Blow!" said Jack. "We're no better off now! Not even a bar of chocolate. We shall starve!"

"If we could explore that hut you saw the men by last night, I bet we'd find plenty of food," said Dinah. "Don't you remember the men saying 'Let's go to the hut and have a meal'? Well, they couldn't have a meal without food, could they? - so the food must be there."

This was a distinctly cheering idea. Jack led the way to where he had seen the men sitting by the camp-fire the night before. The fire was almost out, though it was still smouldering a little.

The hut lay nearby. It was tumble-down, but not burnt as had been all the other buildings they had seen. Rough repairs had been done to it. The one window looked strong, and was hardly big enough for anyone to get in or out, if he had wanted to. The door was also a strong one. It was shut.

"Locked, of course," said Jack, giving it a tug. "And they've taken the key. Who did they think was going to come along and take anything? They don't know a thing about us."

"Let's look in at the window," said Lucy-Ann. "We could see inside easily."

Jack hoisted Philip up. The boy looked inside, finding it difficult at first to make out anything, because the interior of the shed was dark. The only light came in from the small window.

"Ah - now I can see better," said Philip. "There are a couple of mattresses - and rugs - and a table and some chairs - and a stove of some kind. And gosh - just look at that!"

"What?" cried everyone impatiently. Lucy-Ann jumped up and down, trying to see in at the window too.

"Stacks of food!" said Philip. "Tins and tins of it! And pots and jars of stuff! Golly, they make my mouth water."

Jack could bear Philip's weight no longer. He set him down with a jerk.

"Hoist me up now," he said, and Philip gave him a hoist. Jack's eyes nearly fell out of his head when he saw the food, neatly piled on shelves that ran along one side of the hut.

"It's a kind of store-house, or rest-house," he said, jumping down from Philip's back. "My word, if we could only get some! Why did those men take the key? Distrustful creatures!"

"Can we get in at the window?" asked Philip, and he looked eagerly up at it. "No, we can't. Not even Lucy-Ann could get in there. Besides, it can't be opened. It's just a pane of gla.s.s set into the window-frame, with no catch or fastener to open it. We'd have to smash it - and that would give away the fact that somebody was here."

The children wandered gloomily round the shed. Then they set off to see if there was anything else to be found nearby. But there wasn't.

"I suppose we'd better get back to our own shed and remove our things, and hide them somewhere else in case those men do have a look round when they come back," said Jack. "How I hate leaving all that food in this shed! I'm starving."

"So am I," said Lucy-Ann. "I could almost eat Kiki's sunflower seeds."

"Well, have some," said Jack, holding out a handful. "They're not poisonous."

"No, thanks," said Lucy-Ann. "I'm not as starving as all that."

Philip went up to the door of the shed and glared at it. "I'd like to knock you down," he said. "Standing there between ourselves and a good square meal. Take that!"

To the great amus.e.m.e.nt of the others he aimed a hearty kick at the door, and then another.

It flew wide open. The children gasped in surprise, and stared. "It wasn't locked after all!" cried Jack. "Just shut. What idiots we were to think it was locked! Come on - now for a feast!"

Chapter 8.

KIKI TALKS TOO MUCH.

THEY all crowded into the dimly lighted shed. They gazed joyfully at the piles of things on the shelves.

"Biscuits! Tongue! Pineapple! Sardines! Milk! Gosh, there's everything here!" cried Jack. "What shall we start on?"

"Wait a bit. Don't let's disarrange the shelf so much that the men will know someone has been here," said Philip. "Better take tins from the back, not the front. And we won't eat the fruit and other stuff here - we'll take it away with us."

"I think," said Jack slowly - "I really do think it would be a good idea to take away as much of this as we can carry, in case we are stuck in this valley for some time. We may as well face the fact that we are completely lost, and cut off from the world we know, and may not be rescued for ages."

The others looked solemn, and Lucy-Ann looked scared as well.

"You're right, Freckles," said Philip. "We'll help ourselves to as much as we can carry. Look, here's a pile of old sacks. What about filling a couple of them with the tins and carrying them off between us? We could take dozens of the tins then."

"Good idea," said Jack. "Here's a sack for you and Dinah to fill, and here's one for me and Lucy-Ann."

Philip stood on one of the chairs and reached his hand behind the front row of tins on the shelf. He threw down tin after tin, and the others put them into the two sacks. What a store there was in that hut!

Soon the sacks were full and almost too heavy to carry. It was nice to think of all that food waiting to be eaten. Jack found a tin-opener, too, and put it in his pocket.

"Before we go, let's have a look and see if we can find any papers or doc.u.ments that will tell us something about these mysterious airmen," said Philip. But although they hunted in every corner, and even under the pile of sacks, they could find nothing.

"I wonder what they did with that crate they had in the plane," said Jack. "We haven't found that anywhere. I'd like to have a squint at that too."

The crate was not in the shed. So the children wandered out and had another good look round. And, in a copse of young trees and bushes, with a tarpaulin over them, they found about six of the wooden crates.

"Funny," said Jack, pulling away the tarpaulin. "Look - lots of them - all empty! What are they going to put into them?"

"Goodness knows!" said Philip. "Who would bring empty crates to this deserted valley, hoping to find something to fill them? Only madmen!"

"Oh - you don't really think those men are mad, do you?" said Lucy-Ann in alarm. "What shall we do if they are?"

"Keep out of their way, that's all," said Philip. "Come on. Did we shut that door? Yes, we did. Now, heave-ho, Dinah, catch hold of your end of the sack and we'll go back to our shed."

Stumbling under the weight of the clanking sacks, the four children made their way slowly back to the shed they had hidden their things in. Jack dumped his sack, and then ran to climb the tree he had climbed before, meaning to sweep the countryside with his field-gla.s.ses, and see if the men were by any chance returning yet. But there was no sign of them.

"All clear at the moment," said Jack, going back to the others. "Now for a meal - the finest we've ever had because we've never been so hungry before."

They chose a tin of biscuits and opened it. They took out about forty biscuits, feeling perfectly certain that they could manage at least ten each. They opened a tin of tongue, which Jack carved very neatly with his penknife. Then they opened a tin of pineapple chunks and a tin of milk.

"What a meal!" said Jack, sitting down contentedly on the sun-warmed ground. "Well - here goes!"

Never did food taste so completely delicious. "Mmm-mm-mmm," murmured Lucy-Ann, meaning "This is simply gorgeous." Kiki imitated her at once.

"Mmm-mm-mm! Mm-mm-mm!"

No word was spoken except when Dinah saw Kiki delving too deeply into the tin of pineapple.

"Jack! Do stop Kiki! She'll eat it all!"

Kiki retired to a branch of the tree above, a large chunk of pineapple in her claw. "Mmm-mm-mm!" she kept saying. "Mm-mm-mm!"

Dinah went to the spring and rinsed out the empty tin of milk. Then she filled it with clear cold water and came back. She emptied the water into the pineapple juice left at the bottom of the tin and shook it up. Then she offered everyone a pineapple drink to end the meal.

"Gosh! I do feel better now," said Jack, and he undid his belt and let it out two or three holes. "Thank goodness you lost your temper and kicked that door, Philip. We were so sure that it was locked, and the key taken."

"Silly of us," said Philip, lying down and shutting his eyes. "What are we going to do with the empty tins?"