Then, for the first time, Morgan felt a little shiver of fear andapprehension. It was close in the tower room, and the smell of oil anddead air began to be oppressive. She had no wish to shout, even if shecould be heard, a doubtful probability, for she had no mind to be rescuedbefore the curious eyes of the entire school.

"I'll get out of it somehow, if I have to stay here all evening," she toldherself pluckily. "0h, my goodness, what was that?"

A tiny sawing noise in one corner of the chamber sent Morgan scurrying tothe other side. She would have indignantly denied any fear of mice orrats, but the bravest child might be excused from a too closeacquaintance thrust upon her in the unlit. Morgan had no wish to put herfingers on a mouse.

"How can I get out?" she cried aloud, a little ferociously. "I can't breathe!"

In the uncanny silence that followed the sound of her voice, the sawingnoise sounded regularly, rhythmically. In desperation Morgan seized aniron crowbar she had backed into on the wall, and hurled it in thedirection of the industrious rodents.

"Now I've done it," she admitted, as with a clatter and a bang that, shewas sure, could be heard a mile away, an evident avalanche of toolstumbled to the floor. Her crowbar had struck a box of tools.

But the silence shut down again after that. Betty did not realize thatthe water tower was so isolated that even unusual noises inside it wouldnot carry far, and with the door and the window both closed the room waspractically sealed.