"I found you and brought you in," he said. "The two of you." He pulled up a chair and sat down in a manner that indicated he planned to stay a while. "Now tell me the truth, you two," he said. "Tell me just exactly what happened, the way it happened." "You will call us liars," I protested. "That may be," he admitted. "But I want to hear it just the same." * * * * * So we told him. He sat there and listened without a sign of expression on his face. For all the emotion he showed, he might have been made out of wood. "What do you make of it, Ben," he said at last, when we had finished. "Sabotage," I said. "What do you really think, Ben?" he came back. "Well," I said slowly. "There was a slight leakage of current down that particular tower. I think this leakage and the particular way in which it took place accidentally combined to make us the first time travelers in human history!" Ellen gasped at that but the sheriff didn't blink an eye. "Go on," he said. "I think that building exists in the future," I said. "I think it will exist some day and that it exists now and if we could cross time we could see it. Those men spoke a strange kind of English. That points to the future. They were making atomic bombs. We don't know how to make atomic bombs now but we will know how to do it, in the future. I think that building we entered was an arsenal of the future that will be built in Ten Mile Valley in some coming century. You asked me what I think and I've told you," I defiantly finished. "If you don't like it, you can think up your own explanation." He didn't budge. "Tommy?" he said, his voice a question. "Tommy accidentally blundered through the arch made by the legs of the tower. He found a machine making tiny atomic bombs. He didn't know they were bombs. He thought they were fine pebbles to shoot in his slingshot. And that's what he used them for. They exploded on contact. Maybe they were designed to be dropped from an airplane, hundreds at a time. Maybe they were to be used in interplanetary war. I don't know why they were being made. All I know is that an idiot found them, and thought they would be fine things to shoot in a sling. Incidentally, what happened to Tommy?" I had forgotten all about Tommy Sonofagun. "We found pieces of him," the sheriff sighed. "He had a pocketful of those pebbles when the falling cables hit him. They all exploded at once." Poor Tommy Sonofagun. He would never get his barrel of candy. Decisively the sheriff got to his feet. He stopped at the door and looked back. "You are right, Ben," he said. "It was attempted sabotage." And that's the way it went down in the official records, that's the way I wrote the story for my paper. The public would be willing to believe in sabotage. But would they be willing to believe in time travel? Not this century!