Page:The Enchanted Castle.djvu/139

 They went back the same way, and then down through the town, and through its narrow, unsavoury streets to the towing-path by the timber yard. Here they ran along the trunks of the big trees, peeped into the saw-pit, and—the men were away at dinner and this was a favourite play place of every boy within miles—made themselves a see-saw with a fresh cut, sweet-smelling pine plank and an elm-root.

"What a ripping place!" said Mabel, breathless on the seesaw's end. "I believe I like this better than pretending games or even magic."

"So do I," said Jimmy. "Jerry, don't keep sniffing so—you'll have no nose left."

"I can't help it," Gerald answered; "I daren't use my hankey for fear Johnson's on the lookout somewhere unseen. I wish I'd thought of some other signal." Sniff! "No, nor I shouldn't want to now if I hadn't got not to. That's what's so rum. The moment I got down here and remembered what I'd said about the signal I began to have a cold—and Thank goodness! here he is."

The children, with a fine air of unconcern, abandoned the see-saw.

"Follow my leader!" Gerald cried, and ran along a barked oak trunk, the others following. In and out and round about ran the file of children, over heaps of logs, under the jutting ends of piled planks, and just as the policeman's heavy boots trod the towing-path Gerald halted at the end of a little landing-stage of rotten