Читать книгу A West Point Treasure; Or, Mark Mallory's Strange Find онлайн

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Mark examined the table with its queer outlay of dishes. They were all covered with dust; several had tops, and when Mark lifted them he found that they, too, were empty but for that. It seemed as if dust were everywhere.

Mark was recalled from his interesting exploration by an excited “B’gee!” from Dewey. Dewey was staring at the wall, and as the others ran up to him he pointed without a word in front of him. There was a calendar hanging there. And plain as day, the inscription was still—Tuesday, May the eighteenth, eighteen hundred and forty-eight!

The seven were too mystified by that to say a word. They stared at each other in silence, and then went on.

The next thing to attract their attention was a long workbench at one side. Mark wondered how that thing could ever have come in by the opening, until he saw a box of tools at one side, which suggested that it might have been built inside. There were all sorts of strange looking tools upon the bench, and molds, and dies, and instruments which none of them recognized. Nearby was a forge and a small pair of bellows, a pot of once molten metal, now cold and dust-covered, stood beside it; there were bars, too, of what the puzzled crowd took to be lead.