luckily the stairs in the old factory were in good shape. if they had been broken or so shaky that they would not have held up bunny and sue, the children might have fallen and been hurt.
but, as it was, bunny and sue reached the top and found themselves in a hallway. as there was no door leading from this, as far as bunny and sue could see, they kept on walking along the corridor. they made a turn and found themselves in a small room which had in it only one window.
“what we going to do now, bunny?” asked sue.
“well,” he slowly answered, as he looked around. “i guess we got in the wrong place. we can’t seem to get out of here. we’ll go back downstairs.”
[222]but as bunny and sue turned to do this there came a puff of wind which swept through the old factory where so many windows were broken. the door of the room in which the children now were standing suddenly blew shut with a loud slam.
“oh!” exclaimed sue.
“it’s only the door,” explained bunny. “i’ll open it and we’ll go back downstairs.”
he walked to the door and pulled on the handle. it did not open the first time and bunny pulled again, harder this time. still the door did not open.
“what’s the matter?” asked sue, coming to her brother’s side.
“oh, it’s just stuck, i guess,” he answered.
again he pulled on the door as hard as he could. but he could not open it.
“i’ll help,” offered sue. but even with her aid bunny could not pull it open. “i guess maybe it’s locked,” went on sue.
“i guess maybe it is,” agreed bunny.
still they did not give up. again and again bunny and sue pulled on the handle until it became very certain that the door was[223] locked. it was not merely stuck from tightness—it was locked. afterward the children found that there was a spring lock on the outside of the door and when it had blown shut it became securely fastened. it could only be opened from the outside.
it did not take bunny and sue very long to know that they were locked in—locked in that small room of the old, deserted factory. they had made a mistake coming up the stairs, for now they could not get out. there was no other door in the room.
but there was a window!
bunny turned to this as soon as he had found out for a certainty that he could not open the door. like many other windows in the factory, this one had most of its panes of glass broken out. part of the sash was also gone, leaving an opening large enough for the boy and girl to step through without being cut on the jagged edges of the broken panes.
bunny walked over to the window. sue followed him and asked what he was going to do. for a moment her brother did not answer. then he said:
[224]“look, here’s a fire escape! we can get out on that!”
built on the outside brick wall of the factory was an iron balcony fire escape. one could easily step out of the window to the platform, which had a square hole in the center. the platform was made of strips of iron.
“we can just go down this even if the door is locked,” said bunny. “come on, sue.”
“are there any stairs?” she asked.
“there’s a ladder,” said bunny. “fire escapes don’t have stairs; they have ladders.”
“all right,” said sue. “i can go up and down a ladder. i go up and down the one in our barn.” she had done this many times when playing with bunny and his chums or her own girl friends.
bunny stepped carefully out on the fire escape. he had seen that the factory was old and he thought perhaps the iron fire escape might be so rusted as to fall with him. but it bore his weight and seemed solid.
but when bunny looked for the ladder that should lead to the ground below, he was much[225] disappointed not to see it. the ladder was gone!
“oh!” exclaimed bunny brown.
“what’s the matter?” asked sue, who was still inside the factory near the window.
“there isn’t any ladder, and we can’t get down,” her brother replied.
“oh, dear!” cried sue. “can’t we jump?”
“it’s too far,” answered bunny. “maybe i can get the door open now. i’ll try again.”
he did try, but the door was still locked. then, almost ready to cry, the children went out on the fire escape and looked around. they could see a factory yard, littered with broken machinery and old tins, and around it all was a high fence. they could see no one to whom to call for help.
sue was just going to cry and bunny was trying to think of some way of jumping or climbing down to go for help, leaving sue on the platform, when suddenly a man’s voice called:
“what are you children doing there?”
bunny looked down and saw a man in the factory yard. he seemed to be a watchman[226] or a caretaker, as, later, he proved to be. once more he called:
“what are you children doing there?”
“we’re lost,” explained bunny. “we’re looking for our trick dog, and we came in here and a door slammed shut and there’s no ladder to get down this fire escape.”
“oh, i see,” said the man. “yes, i know about that door. it has a very strong lock on it and i can’t get the key. but if you’ll wait there a minute i’ll get you down.”
“how?” asked bunny.
“i’ll get a ladder and put it up to the fire escape. that’s easier than trying to open the inside door. wait a minute, i’ll soon have you down.”
the man hurried away, and bunny and sue feared he might not come back. but he did, and in a minute or two, carrying a ladder which he put up to the fire escape platform. then he carried bunny and sue to the ground, and very thankful they were to reach it again.
“now tell me all about it,” said the man.
bunny and sue told about setting off in[227] search of the lost patter, relating how they had wandered into the old factory.
“well, i’m glad i happened to come here to-day,” said the man. “i’m hired by the owners to keep a sort of watch over this place; but i don’t come very often, for there isn’t much left to take away. but i happened to be passing just now and i thought i’d take a look around. now where do you want to go?”
“we want to find patter,” said sue. “do you think you’ve seen our dog?”
“what sort of a dog was he?”
the children started to tell about their trick pet, but they had mentioned only a few things about him when the man, whose name was jacob ward, exclaimed:
“say, i believe i know where your dog is! i saw him this morning. or, if it isn’t patter, it’s a dog very much like him.”
“oh, who has him?” cried bunny.
“a colored boy they call black bobby. i know where he lives. he’s one of the chaps that like to throw stones and break these factory windows. only there aren’t many more[228] left to break,” chuckled mr. ward. “but come on, i’ll take you to black bobby and maybe he has your patter.”
their hearts filled with hope, bunny and sue, holding mr. ward’s hands and eating the cookies they had brought with them, went out of the factory yard. mr. ward had no trouble in getting out of the maze of alleys, and soon bunny and sue saw the familiar bay, on the shore of which was their father’s dock.
“now i know where we are,” said bunny.
“we aren’t lost any more,” added sue thankfully.
“there’s where black bobby lives,” said mr. ward, pointing to a ramshackle and tumble-down house. “and here comes black bobby himself,” he added, as a tall colored boy, in ragged clothes, shuffled from the yard into the street.
