"Let's look at the milk," I said, and tasted it and found it sweet.

"That's because the air here is so cool and even," said Carette.

"Well, I feel all the better, anyway, and so do you, I'll be bound. I'm
beginning to think, you know, that we were over fearful perhaps, and that
we need not have come hiding here at all."

"We'll know better when we hear what's going on outside. Your grandfather
and George Hamon are not men to be over fearful, and they thought it well."

"That is so," I said, feeling better at that.

"I wonder if it is day or night, and how long we've really been in here?"

"Long enough to be hungry, anyway," I said, heartily ready to eat. And we
fell to on Aunt Jeanne's ham and rabbit pie, Carette cutting up all I ate
into small pieces with my knife, since we had forgotten to bring any other.
We drank up the milk out of the big-bellied tin can, and never was there
sweeter milk or sweeter can, for Carette had first drink. And then, lest
it should get foul, we started off to find the fresh water to wash it out
and bring back a supply.

There was no mistaking the hollow place where the fresh water was. The
light of the lantern fell on many a narrow rift in the walls of rock on
either side, all sharp cracks and fissures, with rough-toothed edges, as
though the solid granite had been split with mighty hammer-strokes. The
seams were all awry, and the lines and cracks were all sharp and straight,
though running into one another and across in great confusion. And, of a