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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns
+by Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
+
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns
+
+Author: Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
+
+Release Date: August, 2004  [EBook #6338]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 28, 2002]
+[Date last updated: June 29, 2005]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BOY SCOUTS IN THE COAL CAVERNS ***
+
+
+
+
+Scanned by Sean Pobuda  (jpobuda@adelphia.net)
+
+Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns,
+Or The Light in Tunnel Six
+
+By Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+CAMPING IN THE BREAKER
+
+
+"And so I says to myself, says I, give me a good husky band of Boy
+Scouts!  They'll do the job if it can be done!"
+
+Case Canfield, caretaker, sat back in a patched chair in the dusky,
+unoccupied office of the Labyrinth mine and addressed himself to four
+lads of seventeen who were clad in the khaki uniform of the Boy Scouts
+of America.
+
+Those of our readers who have read the previous books of this series
+will have good cause to remember George Benton, Charley ("Sandy")
+Green, Tommy Gregory and Will Smith.  The adventures of these lads
+among the Pictured Rocks of Old Superior, among the wreckers and
+reptiles of the Florida Everglades, in the caverns of the Great
+Continental Divide, and among the snows of the Hudson Bay wilderness
+have been recorded under appropriate titles in previous works.
+
+The four boys were members of the Beaver Patrol, Chicago.  Will Smith
+was Scoutmaster, while George Benton was Patrol Leader.  They wore
+upon the sleeves of their coats medals showing that they had passed
+the examination as Ambulance Aids, Stalkers, Pioneers and Seamen.
+
+Instructed by Mr. Horton, a well-known criminal lawyer of Chicago, the
+boys had reached the almost deserted mine at dusk of a November day.
+There they had found Canfield, the caretaker, waiting for them in a
+dimly-lighted office.  The mine had not been operated for a number of
+months, not because the veins had given out, but because of some
+misunderstanding between the owners of mines in that section.
+
+The large, bare room in which the caretaker and the Boy Scouts met was
+in the breaker.  There was no fire in the great heater, and the tables
+and chairs were black with dust.  A single electric light shone down
+from the ceiling, creating long, ghost-like shadows as it swayed about
+in a gentle wind blowing through a broken window.
+
+"Well," Tommy Gregory said, as the caretaker paused, "you've got the
+Boy Scouts, and it remains for you to set us to work."
+
+"And a sturdy looking lot, too!" grinned the caretaker.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Horton wouldn't be apt to send a lot of cripples!" laughed
+Sandy Green.  "He's next to his job, that man is!"
+
+"I presume he told you all about the case?" suggested Canfield.
+
+"Indeed he did not," replied Will Smith.
+
+"Not a thing about it?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"He only said that you would give us full instructions."
+
+"That's strange!" Canfield observed thoughtfully.
+
+"Perhaps he thought we wouldn't want to undertake the job if we knew
+exactly what it was!" suggested Sandy.
+
+"It is a queer kind of a job," Canfield admitted, "but I don't think
+you boys would be apt to back out because of a little danger."
+
+"I wanted to back out several times," laughed Tommy, "but, somehow,
+these others boys wouldn't permit me to."
+
+"Go on and tell us about it," urged Sandy.  "Tell us just what you
+want us to do, and then we'll tell you whether we think we can do it
+or not."
+
+"You've got to find two boys!" replied Canfield.
+
+"Mother of Moses!" exclaimed Tommy.  "I hope we haven't got to go and
+dig up blond-haired little Algernon, or discover pretty little
+Clarence, and turn a bunch of money over to him!"
+
+"I think these two boys may have money coming to them," the caretaker
+replied.  "There must be money back of it or the friends of the lads
+wouldn't be giving me cash to spent in their interest."
+
+"Where are these boys?" asked Will.
+
+"I've heard the opinion expressed that the boys are somewhere in the
+mine!" answered Canfield.  "I can hardly believe that they are, but it
+has been suggested that we may as well begin the search under ground."
+
+"Where do these boys belong?" asked George.
+
+"Anywhere and everywhere," was the reply.  "Jimmie Maynard and Dick
+Thompson came here as breaker boys six months ago.  They were ragged
+and dirty, and appeared to be as tough as two young bears.  They
+worked steadily until the day before the mine closed down and then
+they disappeared."
+
+"That's easy," declared Tommy.  "They got tired of work!"
+
+"That may be," answered the caretaker, "but they certainly didn't get
+tired of drawing their pay.  They went away leaving about eight
+dollars the two of them in the care of the company."
+
+"Then something must have happened to them!" Will suggested.
+
+"Who's looking for these boys?" asked George.
+
+"A New York lawyer," was the reply.  "I know nothing whatever about
+the man.  In fact, I don't know why he wants to find out where the
+boys are.  He sends me money and tells me to continue my quest
+until the boys are found, and then to send them to New York."
+
+"So you have entire charge of the search," said Sandy, tentatively.
+
+"Yes," was the reply, "except for Joe Ventner.  He's a detective sent
+on from New York by this Burlingame person, the lawyer to whom I
+referred a short time ago."
+
+"What part of the world is he searching?" asked Will.
+
+"He seems to think that the boys ran away because of some childish
+prank put on by them the night before.  They broke some windows in a
+couple of shanties down by the tracks, or, at least, the other boys
+say they did, and Joe thinks they ran away because of that.  He
+accounts in that way for them not calling after their pay envelopes."
+
+"So he thinks they've gone out of the country, does he."
+
+"Yes," was the reply.  "He comes back here every few days to ask if I
+have heard anything regarding the youngsters, and then goes away
+again.  If you leave it to me, I don't think the fellow is working
+very hard in the case.  There's a half a dozen saloons in a little
+dump of a place about ten miles away, and my idea is that he puts in a
+good deal of his time there."
+
+"You don't seem to take to this detective?" asked George.
+
+"Oh, I don't know, as he's so much worse than the average private
+detective," replied the caretaker.  "He's out for his day's wages, and
+the easier he can get them, the better it suits him."
+
+"So you don't know who wants these boys, or what they're wanted for?"
+asked Will.  "Lawyer Burlingame never took you into his confidence so
+far as to post you on the details of the case?"
+
+"He never did!" answered the caretaker.
+
+"Is he liberal with his money?" asked George.
+
+"He pays all the bills I send in," was the answer.  "And seems to keep
+this bum detective pretty well supplied with ten dollar bills."
+
+"We may have to investigate this investigator!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"Did Mr. Horton say anything to you about your lodgings while here?"
+asked the caretaker.  "It's getting too cold here for me, and we may
+as well be shifting to warmer quarters."
+
+"You said a short time ago," Will began, "that you rather thought we
+ought to begin this search in the mine itself."
+
+"That's my idea!" answered the caretaker.
+
+"Do you think the boys are hiding in the mine?"
+
+"Well, there are some things connected with the case which point in
+that direction," replied Canfield.  "For instance, there's a lot of
+queer things going on underground."
+
+"Ghosts?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"You're not steering us up against a haunted mine, are you?" asked
+George with a wink at his chum.  "That would be too good to be true!"
+
+"I haven't said anything about ghosts or haunted mines," chuckled the
+caretaker.  "I'm only saying that there are queer things taking place
+in the mine.  Now there's Tunnel Six," he went on, "I have seen lights
+there with my own eyes, when I know there wasn't a person within two
+miles of the spot except myself.  And I've heard noises, too!  These
+unaccountable noises which make a man think of graveyards and ghosts."
+
+"But why should two healthy, active boys want to seek such a hiding
+place?" asked Will.  "It certainly can't be very pleasant in the dark
+and damp tunnels!  Besides, where would they get their provisions?"
+
+"I'm not arguing the case, lads," the caretaker replied, "I'm placing
+the case in your hands without instructions.  I only suggest that you
+look in the mine first, but you don't have to do that unless you want
+to!"
+
+"I don't see how we can find fault with that arrangement!" laughed
+Will.  "And now," he went on, let's arrange about our lodgings.  In the
+first place, who knows that we are here on this job?"
+
+"Not a soul, unless some one saw you coming into the breaker!"
+
+"That's just as it should be," Will went on.  "Now I propose that we
+camp out in the breaker.  There must be a cozy corner somewhere, under
+the chutes, or in back of a staircase, or away up under the roof,
+where we can camp out while we are going through the mine."
+
+"You won't find the old breaker a very comfortable place to live in,"
+suggested Canfield.
+
+"Well, we can line the walls of some little cubbyhole with canvas if
+necessary, and you can string a wire in so as to give us electricity
+for heating and lighting, and we can live as comfortable as four bugs
+in a rug.  If we keep out of sight during the day time, no one will
+ever suspect that we are here."
+
+"Have it your own way!" replied Canfield.  "I'll see that you get
+plenty to eat and plenty of bed clothing."
+
+"That'll help some!" laughed Tommy.  "During the night we can travel
+through the mine with our lights, and during the daytime we can crawl
+into our little beds and sleep our heads off!"
+
+"When do you want your first load of provisions?" asked Canfield.
+
+"Right now, tonight!" replied Sandy.
+
+"Well, come along then," Canfield said, rising from his chair, "and
+I'll let you pick out a spot for your camp, as you call it."
+
+After quite an extended search through the breaker the boys selected a
+small room on the ground floor, from which one window looked out on
+the half deserted yard where the weigh-house stood.  The room was
+perhaps twenty feet in size each way, and the walls were of heavy
+planking.  The whole apartment was sadly in need of it scrubbing, but
+the lads concluded to postpone that until some future date.
+
+"I can bring in cot beds and bedding," the caretaker announced, "and
+string the electric wire for heating, lighting, and cooking before I
+go to bed.  That will leave you all shipshape in the morning, and you
+can then begin your cleaning up as soon as you please."
+
+The caretaker was as good as his word, and before ten o'clock the cots
+and bedding were in place, also an electric heater and an electric
+plate for cooking had been moved into the apartment.
+
+Not considering it advisable to go out for supper, Canfield had also
+brought in provisions in the shape of bacon, potatoes, eggs, bread,
+butter, coffee, and various grades of canned goods, so the boys had
+made a hearty meal and had plenty left for breakfast.  While cooking
+they had covered the one window with a heavy piece of canvas.
+
+"Now you're all, tight and snug for the night," the caretaker smiled,
+as he turned back from the door and glanced over the rather
+cozy-looking room.  "If I'm about here during the night, I'll look in
+upon you again."
+
+Canfield stepped out and closed the door behind him.  Then he came
+back and looked in again with a big smile on his face.
+
+"Do you boys know anything about mines?" he asked.
+
+"Not, a thing!" replied Tommy.
+
+"Then don't you go climbing down the ladders and wandering around in
+the gangways tonight," the caretaker warned.
+
+"Say, there's an idea!" Tommy said to Sandy, with a wink, as Canfield
+went out.  "How do you think one of these mammoth coal mines looks,
+any way?"
+
+"Cut that out, boys!" exclaimed Will.  "If I catch one of you
+attempting the ladders tonight, I'll tie you up!"
+
+"Who said anything about going down the ladders tonight?" demanded
+Tommy.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE CALL OF THE PACK
+
+
+It was somewhere near midnight when the boys sought their beds.  Will
+and George were soon asleep, but Tommy and Sandy had no notion of
+passing their first night in the mine in slumber.  Ten minutes after
+the regular breathing of the two sleepers became audible, Tommy sat
+up in his bed and deftly threw a pillow so as to strike Sandy in the
+face.
+
+"Cut it out!" whispered Sandy.  "You don't have to do anything to wake
+me up!  I've been wondering for a long time whether you hadn't gone to
+sleep!  You looked sleepy when the light went out."
+
+"Never was so wide awake in my life!" declared Tommy.
+
+"Well, get up and dress," advised Sandy.  "If we get into the mine
+tonight, we'll have to hurry!"
+
+"Have you figured out how we're going to get into the mine?" asked
+Tommy.  "It will be the ladders for us, I guess."
+
+"Of course, it'll be the ladders!" replied Sandy.
+
+"Do you suppose Canfield is coming here in the middle of the night to
+turn on the power?"
+
+"I wonder how deep the shaft is?" asked Tommy.  "I guess this one must
+be about five hundred feet."
+
+"Is that a guess, or a piece of positive information?"
+
+"It's a guess," laughed Sandy, drawing on his shoes and walking softly
+across the bare floor in the direction of the shaft.
+
+The boys passed out of the sleeping chamber into a passage which led
+directly to the shaft of the mine.  This shaft was perhaps twenty feet
+in width.  It included the air shaft, the division where the pumps were
+operated, and two divisions for the cages which lifted the coal from
+the bottom of the mine.  The pumps were not working, of course, and no
+air was being forced down.
+
+One of the cages lay at the top so the other must have been at the
+bottom of the shaft.  As the boys looked down into the shaft, Tommy
+seized his chum by the arm and whispered:
+
+"Did you see that light down there?"
+
+"Light nothing!" declared Sandy.
+
+"But I did see a light!" insisted the other.
+
+"Perhaps you did," replied Sandy, "but if there's any light there it's
+merely a reflection from our electrics.  There may be a metallic
+surface down there which throws back the light rays."
+
+"Have it your own way!" grunted Tommy.  "You know yourself that the
+caretaker said there were lights in the mine which no one could
+account for and he especially mentioned the light in Tunnel Six.
+
+"All right!" Sandy grinned.  "We'll sneak down so quietly that any
+person who happens to be at the bottom of the shaft with the light
+will never suspect that we are within a hundred miles of the place.
+We may be able to geezle the fellow that's making the ghost walk
+around here nights."
+
+The boys took to the ladders and moved down as silently as possible.
+Now and then a rung creaked softly under their feet, but they got to
+the bottom without any special mishap.
+
+Tommy drew a long breath when at last they landed at the bottom of the
+shaft.  He threw his light upward, then, and declared that in his
+opinion they were at least ten thousand feet nearer the center of the
+earth than they were when they started down.
+
+"I remember now," Sandy said with a grin, "that the Labyrinth mine is
+only about five hundred feet deep.  If I remember correctly, there are
+three levels; one at three hundred feet; one at four, and one at
+five."
+
+"And which level is this?" asked Tommy.  "Why, we're on the bottom,
+ain't we?"
+
+"Of course," laughed Tommy.  "I ought to have known that!"
+
+"Well come along if you want to see the mine!" urged Sandy.  "All we
+have to do is to push our searchlights ahead and walk down the
+gangway.  We'll come to something worth seeing after a while."
+
+As the boys advanced they found the gangway considerably cluttered
+with "gob," or refuse, and the air was none of the best.
+
+"I wish we could set the air shaft working," suggested Sandy.
+
+"Well, we can't!" Tommy answered with a scornful shrug of his
+shoulders.  "We can't set the whole works going in order to give us a
+midnight view of the Labyrinth mine.  What gets me is how are we going
+to find our way back?  There seem to be a good many passages here."
+
+"I've got that fixed all right!" Sandy exclaimed.
+
+As the lad spoke he took a ball of strong string from his pocket and
+tied one end to the cage which lay at the bottom of the shaft.
+
+"Now we can go anywhere we please," he chuckled, "and when we want to
+return, all we've got to do is to follow the string."
+
+"Quite an idea!" laughed Tommy.
+
+The boys proceeded along the gangway, walking between the rails of the
+tramway by means of which the coal was delivered at the bottom of the
+shaft.  The experience was a novel one to them.  The dark walls of the
+passage, the echoes which came from the counter gangways, the
+monotonous dripping of  water, as it seeped through seams and crevices
+in the rock, all gave a weird and uncanny expression to the place.
+
+After walking for some distance the boys came to a level which showed
+several inches of water.
+
+"We can't wade through that!" Tommy declared.
+
+"Well," Sandy suggested, "if we go back a little ways, we can follow a
+cross heading and get into the mine by another way."
+
+The boys followed this plan, and, after winding about several
+half-loaded cars which had been left on the tramway, found themselves
+in a large chamber from which numerous benches were cut.
+
+"Where does all this gas come from?" asked Tommy stopping short and
+putting a hand to his nose.
+
+"There must be a blower somewhere," Sandy explained.
+
+"What's a blower?" demanded Tommy.  "What does it look like, and does
+it always smell like this?"
+
+"It doesn't look like anything!" replied Sandy.  "It's composed of
+natural gas, and they call it a blower because it blows up out of
+crevices in the coal and in the rocks."
+
+"If I should light a match, would it set it on, fire?" asked Tommy.
+
+"I wouldn't like to have you try it!"
+
+The boys continued on their way for some moments, and then Tommy
+stopped and extinguished his light, whispering to Sandy to do the
+same.
+
+"What's that for?" demanded the latter.
+
+"Didn't you hear that noise behind the cribbing?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Rats, probably!"
+
+"Rats nothing!" replied Tommy.  "Rats don't make sounds like people
+whispering, do they?  Keep still a minute, and we'll find out what it
+is!"
+
+"You'll be, seeing a light next!" Sandy suggested.
+
+"I see it now!" answered Tommy.
+
+Sandy saw it, too, in a moment.  It seemed at first to be floating in
+the air at the very top of the gangway.  It moved from side to side,
+and finally dropped down nearer to the floor.  There seemed to be no
+one near it or under it.  Its small circle of illumination showed only
+the empty air.
+
+"What do you make of it?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Is this Tunnel Six?" asked his chum.
+
+"I don't know!  If it is, we've seen the light the caretaker referred
+to.  We'll have a great story to tell in the morning!"
+
+The boys stood in the darkness of the gangway watching the light for
+what seemed to them to be a long time.  Now the light advanced toward
+them, now it receded.  Now it lifted to the roof of the gangway, now
+it dropped almost to the floor.
+
+At intervals, the noises behind the cribbing to which Tommy had
+referred were repeated, and the boys at last moved over so as to stand
+with their ears almost against the wooden walls.
+
+"There is some one behind the cribbing, all right!" Tommy declared.
+"I hear some one breathing."
+
+"Aw, keep still!" whispered Sandy.  "If there is anyone there, you'll
+frighten them away!  I though I heard some one myself!"
+
+"I'll tell you what I think," Tommy suggested in a moment, "and that
+is that either Will and George, or both of them, beat us to this
+gangway.  They are hiding behind there on purpose to give us a scare."
+
+"That's a dream!" replied Sandy.  "We left them both asleep."
+
+"Dream, is it?" repeated Tommy scornfully.  "You just listen to the
+sound that comes from behind this cribbing, and tell me what you make
+of it!"
+
+Both boys listened intently for a moment, and then Sandy switched on
+his light and moved swiftly along the cribbing as if in search of an
+opening.  Tommy gazed at him in astonishment.
+
+"You've gone and done it now!" he said.
+
+"There's some one in here all right!" Sandy explained.  "Did you hear
+the call of the pack a minute ago?  There are Boy Scouts in there, and
+what we hear are the signals of the Wolf Patrol."
+
+"That's right!" cried Tommy excitedly.  "That's right!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+WHO CUT THE STRING
+
+
+"Do you suppose he would understand the call of the Beaver Patrol?"
+asked Sandy.  "I'm going to try him, anyway!"
+
+The boy brought his hands together in imitation of the slap of a
+beaver's tail on the water, and listened for some reply.
+
+"He'll understand that if he's up on Boy Scout literature," suggested
+Sandy.  "He ought to be wise to the signs of the different patrols if
+he's a good Boy Scout."
+
+There was a short silence, broken only by the constant drip of the
+water in an adjoining chamber and then the call of the pack came
+again, clearly, sharply and apparently only a short distance away.
+
+"What did Mr. Canfield call those two boys we are looking after?"
+asked Sandy, after waiting a short time for the repetition of the
+sound.
+
+"Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson," replied Tommy.
+
+Sandy threw out his chest and cried out at the top of his lungs.
+
+"Hello, Jimmie!  Hello, Dick!"
+
+The lad's voice echoed dismally throughout the labyrinth of passages,
+but there was no other reply.  Tommy and Sandy gave the call of the
+Beaver Patrol repeatedly, but the call of the Wolf pack was heard no
+more.
+
+"I'll bet it's some trick!" exclaimed Sandy after waiting in the
+chamber for a long time in the hope of hearing another call from the
+boys who were hidden somewhere behind the cribbing.
+
+"What do you mean by trick?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"Why, I mean that some of the breaker boys, out of work because of the
+stoppage of operations, may have sneaked into the mine on purpose to
+produce the impression that there are ghosts here."
+
+"But ghosts wouldn't be giving signals of the Wolf Patrol, would
+they?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Not unless they were Scouts," replied the other.
+
+"Oh, well, of course the kids would want to test us, wouldn't they,
+seeing that we were only boys?"
+
+"Well, we've discovered one thing by coming down here," said Tommy,
+"and that is that there really are people in the mine who have no
+business here."
+
+"Then we may as well go back to bed," advised Sandy.
+
+"Do you know how many corners we've turned since we came in here?"
+asked Tommy.
+
+"About a thousand, I guess," replied Sandy.
+
+"Yes, and we'd have a fine old time getting out if you hadn't brought
+that ball of twine!"
+
+"Tell you what we'll do," Sandy said, as the boys turned their faces
+down the gangway, "we'll pass around the next shoulder of rock and
+then shut off our lights.  Perhaps, the kids who gave the cry of the
+pack in there will then show their light again."
+
+"That's a good idea, too!"
+
+The boys came at length to a brattice, which is a screen, of either
+wood or heavy cloth, set up in a passage to divert the current of air
+to a bench where workmen are engaged, and dodged down behind it, after
+turning off their lights, of course,
+
+"Now, come on with your old light," whispered Tommy.
+
+As if in answer to the boy's challenge, the light showed again,
+apparently but a few yards way from their hiding place.
+
+A moment later the call of pack sounding louder than before, rang
+through the passage.  The boys sprang to their feet and switched on
+their lights.
+
+"Why don't you come out and show yourselves?" shouted Tommy.
+
+"I don't believe you're Scouts at all!" declared Sandy.
+
+There was no answer.  The boys could hear the drip of water and the
+purring of the current as it crept into a lower gang-way, but that was
+all.
+
+"That settles it for tonight!" exclaimed Tommy.  "I'm not going to
+hang around here waiting for Boy Scouts who don't respond to signals!"
+
+"That's me!" agreed Sandy.  "We'll go to bed and think the matter
+over.  There may be some way of trapping those fellows."
+
+"Suppose it should be Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thomson?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Then we'd have the case closed up in a jiffy!" was the reply.
+
+Before leaving that particular chamber, Tommy selected a large round
+piece of "Gob," placed it in the center of the open space, and laid
+another small piece of shale on top of it.
+
+"What are you doing that for?" demanded Sandy.
+
+"Don't you know your Indian signs?" demanded the boy.  "This means,
+'this is the trail.'  Now I'll put one stone to the right and that
+will tell these imitation Boy Scouts to turn to the right if they want
+to get out."
+
+"I guess they can get out if they want to," suggested Sandy.
+
+Thirty or forty feet further on, where, following the string, the boys
+turned again, this time to the left, Tommy laid another signal which
+showed the direction to be taken.
+
+"There," he said with a grin, "we've started them on the right path.
+If they don't want to follow it, that isn't our fault!"
+
+"We must be getting pretty near the shaft," Sandy said, after the boys
+had walked for nearly half an hour on the backward track.
+
+"Pull on your string," suggested Tommy, "and see if it stiffens up
+like only a short length of it remained out."
+
+Sandy did as requested, and then dropped to the floor with his
+searchlight laid along the extension of the cord.
+
+"The other end is loose!" he said in a tone of alarm.
+
+"Loose?" echoed Tommy.  "How did it ever get loose?"
+
+Sandy sat down on the floor of the passage and began drawing the cord
+in, hand over hand.
+
+"I'm going to see if it's been cut!" he said.
+
+Tommy stepped on the swiftly moving cord and held it fast to the
+floor.
+
+"You mustn't draw it in!" he exclaimed.  "As long as it lies on the
+floor as we strung it out, we can follow it without taking any
+chances.  If you pull it in, then it's all off."
+
+"I understand!" Sandy agreed.  "I didn't pull much of it in."
+
+The boys started up the gangway, one of them keeping a searchlight on
+the white thread of cord.
+
+They seemed to make a great many turns and once or twice Sandy
+declared that they were walking round and round in a circle.
+
+"I don't believe the passages run so we could walk around in a
+circle!" argued Tommy.  "That ain't the way they run passages in
+mines!"
+
+"I don't care!" Sandy insisted.  "We've been turning to the left about
+all the time, and if you leave it to me, we'll presently come out in
+the chamber where we heard the call of the pack!"
+
+"That may be right," admitted Tommy.  "It does seem as if we'd been
+turning to the left most of the time.  Besides," he went on, "we've
+been walking long enough to have reached the shaft three or four
+times."
+
+"And yet," argued Sandy, "we've been following the line of the cord
+every step.  It lies right in the middle of the gangway here, and
+we're going the way it points all the time."
+
+This bit of reasoning seemed to give the boys fresh courage, and they
+walked on, expecting every moment to come in sight of the frame work
+which surrounded the shaft.  At length, after a long half hour, Tommy
+stumbled over an obstruction lying in a chamber which somehow seemed
+strangely familiar.  He lifted his foot and gave the obstruction a
+hearty kick.
+
+"That's my Indian sign of the trail!" grunted Sandy.
+
+"For the love of Mike!" exclaimed Tommy.  "Have we been traveling all
+this time to come out in this same old hole at last?"
+
+"That's what we have!" replied Sandy.  "If we had paid no attention to
+the string whatever and followed the rails when we came to the main
+gang way, we would have been home and in bed by this time!"
+
+"But we didn't," grinned Tommy.  "We thought we had a cinch on getting
+out by way of this cord and so we followed that.  I don't see,
+though," he continued, "how we came back to this same old chamber by
+following the cord.  That looks queer to me!"
+
+"I'll tell you how!" replied Sandy.  "There's some gink been walking
+on ahead of us stringing the cord out for us to follow!"
+
+Tommy sat down on the bottom of the chamber and wrinkled his freckled
+nose provokingly.
+
+"We're a couple of easy marks!" he laughed.
+
+"Easy marks is no name for, it!"
+
+"Well, what'll we do now to get out?" Tommy asked.  "First thing we
+know, it'll be daylight, and then Will and George'll be calling out
+the police to find us.  We ought to get home before they wake."
+
+"I'm willing!" declared Sandy.  "I'd like to be in my little bed this
+minute!  I've had about enough of this foul air!"
+
+The boys passed along until they came to the second trail sign and
+then stopped.  Tommy pointed down to it with a hand which was not
+quite steady and looked up into his chum's face with frightened eyes.
+
+"That's been moved!" he said.
+
+"How do you know it's been moved?"
+
+"Because you had the side stone on the other edge."
+
+"I don't think I did!" argued Sandy.
+
+The boys puzzled over the situation for a few moments, and then
+proceeded down the chamber looking for the tramway rails.
+
+They passed from chamber to chamber and finally came to a place where
+the slope was upward.
+
+"I guess we've struck it at last!" Sandy exclaimed.
+
+"But there are no rails here!" Tommy argued.
+
+"Then we're on the wrong track again," admitted Sandy.
+
+He bent down to the rock with his searchlight and pointed out
+evidences that the passage had once been laid with rails.
+
+"When they strip a chamber or a counter gangway," he said, "they take
+away the rails.  It seems that we are now in a part of the Labyrinth
+mine which has been worked out."
+
+"I know what to do!" exclaimed Tommy.  "I'll give the call of the
+Beaver Patrol and tell those ginks who have been giving the call of
+the pack that we're lost!  That ought to bring them out of their
+holes."
+
+The Beaver call was given time after time, but no reply came.
+
+"Say," Tommy said after his patience had become exhausted, "I believe
+it's daylight.  Look at your watch.  I left mine in the bed!"
+
+"I left mine in bed, too," answered Sandy.  "I know it is day, because
+I'm hungry."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+A SENSATIONAL DISCOVERY
+
+
+When Will awoke he began preparations for breakfast before paying any
+attention whatever to his chums, whom he believed to be sleeping
+quietly on their cots.  It was November, and quite chilly in the
+apartment, so his next efforts were directed to coaxing the electric
+coils into a cheery glow.
+
+Presently George came tumbling out in his pajamas and sat down on a
+rickety chair to talk of the adventures in prospect.
+
+"I wonder if the Labyrinth mine is so much of a labyrinth after all?"
+he asked.  "It seems to me that we might find our way through it
+without danger of losing ourselves," he continued with a yawn.
+
+"It's some labyrinth, I take it," Will replied.
+
+"Well, we can make chalk marks on the walls as we move along,"
+suggested George.  "Besides," he added, "we can string an electric
+wire through the center gangway and turn on the lights."
+
+"There are probably electric lights there now," answered Will.
+
+"Then there's no danger of our becoming lost," George argued.
+
+"I wish you'd go to the back of the room and tip over those two cots,"
+grinned Will.  "It's the hardest kind of work to get Tommy and Sandy
+to bed, but when you do get them in bed once, it's harder still to get
+them out of it.  Just tip the cots over and roll 'em out on the
+floor."
+
+George approached the two cots in a stealthy manner and made ready to
+give Tommy and Sandy the bump of their lives.
+
+"Don't break their necks!" advised Will.
+
+As soon as George reached Tommy's bunk he stretched forth a hand for
+the purpose of tangling the boy up in the bed clothing so that his
+fall to the hard floor might be in a measure broken.
+
+As, he swung his hand over the cot, however, his eyes widened and he
+called out to Will that the boys were not in their cots.
+
+There was a look of alarm as well as of annoyance on each face as the
+lads thought over the situation.
+
+"The little idiots!" exclaimed Will.
+
+"That isn't strong enough!" George corrected.
+
+"There's no knowing how long they've been gone," Will suggested.  "The
+chances are that they went away as soon as we went to sleep."
+
+"In that case, they're in trouble!" George declared.
+
+"In what kind of trouble?"
+
+"The good Lord only knows!" replied George.  "Tommy and Sandy can get
+into more different kinds of trouble in less time than any other boys
+on the face of the earth.  They're the original lookers for trouble!"
+
+"Do you suppose they've got lost in the mine?" asked Will.
+
+"It may be worse than that!"' cried George.  "They may have butted
+into some of the people the caretaker indirectly referred to last
+night."
+
+"He did speak of strange noises and mysterious lights, didn't he?"
+
+"He certainly did, and I've got a hunch that Sandy and Tommy have
+butted into some hostile interests.
+
+"It does seem as if they would be back by this time unless they were
+in trouble!"
+
+The boys prepared an elaborate breakfast in the hope that Tommy and
+Sandy, who would be sure to be hungry, would return in time to partake
+of it.  A dozen times during the meal they walked back to the shaft
+opening and looked anxiously down into the dark bowels of the mine.
+
+"Those fellows are always getting into trouble," Will said, rather
+crossly, as he stood looking down.  "They have a way of running into
+most of their dangers at night, too.  It was the same up on Lake
+Superior, the same in the snake-haunted Everglades of Florida; the
+same on the Rocky Mountains, and the same in the Hudson Bay country."
+
+"They sure do keep things moving," grinned George.
+
+"I think," Will suggested after a time, "that we'd better find
+Canfield and get his advice before we do anything in the way of
+setting up a search.  I hate to admit that two members of our party
+got into a scrape on the same night we struck the mine, but I guess
+there's, no way out of it."
+
+While the boys talked together, the door opened softly and the
+caretaker entered, accompanied by a short, paunchy man with a very red
+face and eyes which were black, small and suspicious.  He was a man
+well past middle age, but he seemed to be making a bluff at
+thirty-five.  His hair, which had turned white at the temples, and his
+moustache were both dyed black.
+
+Canfield introduced the new-comer as the detective, Joe Ventner, of
+New York, and the boys greeted him courteously.
+
+He accepted their proffered hands with an air of condescension which
+was most exasperating.  He puffed out his chest, and at once began
+talking of some of his alleged exploits in the secret service of the
+government.
+
+"How did you pass the night, boys?" ask Canfield.
+
+"Slept like pigs," replied Will with a laugh.
+
+"Where are the others?" asked Canfield.
+
+"They're out getting a breath of fresh air, I reckon," answered
+George.
+
+The boys did not take to the detective at all.  There was an air of
+insincerity about the man which at once put them on their guard.
+
+Had Canfield visited them alone, they would have explained to him the
+exact situation.  In the presence of this detective, however, they
+decided to do nothing of the kind.
+
+"Now then," the detective said after a moment's silence, "if you boys
+will outline the course you intend to pursue in this matter, I think
+we can arrange to work together without our plans clashing."
+
+"We have talked the matter over during the night," Will replied, "and
+have decided to remain here only long enough to obtain some clue as to
+the direction taken by the boys in their departure."
+
+"Then you think they are not here?" asked the detective.
+
+"There is no reason why they should be here, is there?" asked Will.
+
+"I don't know that there is," replied Ventner.
+
+"Can you imagine any reason for their wanting to linger about the
+mine?" asked George.
+
+"No," was the reply.  "It has always been my opinion that the boys
+left the mine because they feared arrest for some boyish offense
+committed in some other part of the country, and that they are now far
+away from this place."
+
+Both lads observed that the detective seemed particularly pleased with
+the statement that they proposed to abandon the search of the mine
+immediately.  Somehow, they caught the impression that they would
+interfere with his plans if they remained.
+
+"It might be well," Ventner said, directly, "to keep me posted as to
+any discoveries you may make.  We must work together, you know."
+
+"Certainly," replied Will, speaking with a mental reservation which
+did not include giving up of any information worth while.
+
+"Well, then I'll be going," the detective said, strutting across the
+room, with his little round belly protruding like that of an insect.
+"You can always find me at the hotel down here, if I'm in this part of
+the country.  Just ask for me ask for me and I'll show up."
+
+Canfield was turning to depart with the detective when Will motioned
+him to remain.  The caretaker turned back with a surprised look.
+
+Will waited until the door had closed on the detective before
+speaking.  Even then, he went to the door and glanced down the
+passage.
+
+"Something exciting?" smiled the caretaker, noting the boy's caution.
+
+Will answered, "There's something exciting.  Tommy and Sandy
+disappeared during the night."
+
+"Disappeared?" echoed the caretaker.
+
+"Yes," George cut in, "there was some talk of their visiting the mine
+just before we went to bed, and we are of the opinion that they went
+down the shaft shortly after we fell asleep, and failed to find their
+way to the surface again.  We are considerably alarmed."
+
+"I should think you would be!" replied the caretaker.  "In the first
+place, the Labyrinth mine bears the right name.  There are old
+workings below which a stranger might follow for days without finding
+the way out."
+
+"Then we'll have to organize a search for the boys," George suggested.
+
+"Besides,"' continued Canfield, "there are things going on in the mine
+which no one understands.  I have long believed that there are people
+living there who have no right to take up such a residence."
+
+"I'm sorry you said anything to this detective about our being here,"
+Will said after this phase of the case had been discussed.
+
+"As a matter of fact," the caretaker replied, "I didn't intend to say
+anything to Ventner about your being here, but in some way he received
+an intimation that you were about to take up the case and so pumped
+the whole story out of me."
+
+"Perhaps he received his information from the New York attorney,"
+suggested Will.
+
+"I'm sure that he did not," answered the caretaker.  "If the attorney
+had written to him in regard to the matter at all, he would have
+posted him so fully that when he cross-examined me such a proceeding
+would have been unnecessary."
+
+"Has this man Ventner visited the mine often?" asked George.
+
+"Yes, quite frequently."
+
+"Does he always go alone?"
+
+"Yes, he always goes alone," was the answer.  "Once I accompanied him
+to the bottom of the shaft but there he suggested that we go in
+different directions, and did not seem to want me anywhere near him."
+
+"I don't like the looks of the fellow, and that's a fact!" exclaimed
+Will.  "He doesn't look good to me."
+
+After some discussion it was decided that the caretaker would
+accompany the two boys to the bottom of the shaft and direct them down
+gangways, which they could follow without fear of losing their way,
+and the illumination of which would be likely to be observed by anyone
+wandering about the blind chambers and passages of the mine.
+
+When they reached the bottom of the shaft, climbing down the ladders,
+as Tommy and Sandy had done some hours before, they gathered in a
+little group at the bottom while the caretaker gave them a few general
+instructions regarding the general outlines of the Labyrinth of
+tunnels, chambers and cross passages which lay before them.
+
+"Did any one come down after us?" asked Will directly.
+
+"No one," was the reply.  "Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because," Will answered, "there's some one skulking off down that
+passage, and it looks to me like that bum detective!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE FLOODED MINE
+
+
+"What makes you think it's Ventner?" asked the caretaker.  "Did you
+see his face?  I don't think he is here."
+
+"I didn't see his face," answered Will, "but I saw the shape of his
+shoulders and the hang-dog look of him."
+
+"You're prejudiced against Ventner," laughed Canfield.
+
+"I admit it!" replied Will.  "He looks to me like snake in the grass.
+I don't think anything he could do would look good to me."
+
+"Now," Canfield said, "perhaps we'd better be mapping out a plan of
+campaign.  There are three gangways leading in three different
+directions.  We'll leave one of the lights burning at the shaft, then
+we'll each take a light and proceed into the interior, making as much
+noise as we conveniently can, and flashing the light into all the
+chambers and cross headings we come to."
+
+"How long are these gangways?" asked Will.
+
+"Somewhere near a half a mile straight ahead," was the answer.
+
+The caretaker went away swinging his electric searchlight, and Will
+and George pushed forward in their respective passages.
+
+After proceeding a short distance, George heard Will calling to him.
+
+"There's some one just ahead of me in the gangway!" Will declared.  "I
+think we ought to go together!"
+
+"Do you think it's that bum detective?" asked George.
+
+"I certainly do!"
+
+"Well, we can go together if you like," George said.  "We can't cover
+quite as much ground in that way, but I guess we can accomplish more
+in the long run!"
+
+The boys had proceeded only a short distance when they heard Canfield
+calling to them.  A moment later they heard the caretaker's steps
+ringing on the hard floor of the gangway down which they were
+advancing.  He came up to them, panting, in a moment.
+
+"There's something mighty queer about this mine," the caretaker
+declared.  "It was punk dry only two days ago, and now there are four
+or five feet of water where the gangway I started to follow dips down.
+
+"And look there!" Will exclaimed holding his light aloft and pointing,
+"you can see plenty of water ahead!  I guess all the gangways are
+taking a washing, and the water seems to be rising, too!"
+
+"Is there any way by which the mine could be intentionally flooded?"
+asked George.  "There may be some one planning trouble for the
+owners."
+
+"There is only one way that I know of in which the mine could be
+flooded intentionally," replied the caretaker.  "There is a large
+drain, of course, in what is known as the sump.  Considerable water
+runs off in that way, and the rest of the drippings are taken out by
+the pumps.  If this sump drainage could become clogged, the mine, of
+course, would become flooded though not to such an extent, unless the
+pumps were kept constantly at work."
+
+"Then I guess you'd better set the pumps going," Will suggested.  "We
+can't get into the mine in its present condition unless we swim."
+
+"Haven't you got a boat?" asked George.
+
+"Why, yes," replied the caretaker.  "There's a couple of boats
+somewhere in the mine.  The operators placed them here thinking they
+might come in handy at some future time, but I haven't any idea where
+they are now.  Still, I think they're not far away."
+
+"If you'll go and set the pumps in motion," Will advised, "George and
+I'll look around for the boats.  We may need them before the pumps get
+under motion the way the water is pouring in now."
+
+"I guess Tommy and Sandy don't come back because they're penned in by
+water," George suggested, as the boys began searching the vicinity of
+the shaft for the boats.
+
+"If they're anywhere within hearing distance, they ought to answer us
+when we called out, hadn't they?" asked Will.
+
+"We haven't tried that yet," George answered.  "Suppose we let out a
+couple of yells!"
+
+To think in this case was to act, and the boys did let out a couple of
+yells which brought the caretaker running back from the shaft.
+
+The boys were listening for some answer to their shouts when he
+arrived, and so they paid little attention to his numerous questions.
+
+"There is no time to lose," Canfield went on.  "I'll go to the top at
+once and call an engineer and a couple of firemen.  When you find the
+beat, take a trip down the main gangway here and stick your lights
+into all the cross-headings and chambers you see.  But, above all," he
+continued, "don't fail to leave a light here at a shaft, and be
+careful that you never pass out of sight of it."
+
+Canfield hastened away, climbing the ladders two rungs at a time, and
+soon disappeared into the little dot of light at the top.
+
+The two boys searched patiently for the boat for a long time, but did
+not succeed in discovering it.  At last, Will suggested that it might
+be in the mule stable and thither they went.
+
+The boat was there, in excellent condition, and the boys soon had it
+swinging to and fro on the surface of the water which now lay several
+feet deep in the main gangway.
+
+"Jerusalem!" exclaimed George, taking the depth of the water with an
+oar, "if the water is four feet deep here, how deep must it be at the
+middle of the dip?"
+
+"About forty rods, I should think!" exaggerated Will.
+
+The boys left a large searchlight at the shaft so situated that it
+looked straight down the passage they proposed following, and started
+away in the boat.  The flashlights illuminated only a small portion of
+the underground place, but the boys could see some distance straight
+ahead.
+
+Once they ceased rowing to listen, believing that they had heard calls
+from the darkness beyond.  The sound was not repeated, and they were
+about to proceed when a sound which brought all their nervous energy
+into full swing reached their ears.
+
+It was a bumping of an oar or paddle against the side of a boat.  The
+blow echoed through the cavern as sharply as a pistol shot might have
+done.  There could be no mistake in the cause.
+
+"Now who's in that other boat?"
+
+"Somehow," George grumbled in a whisper, "we always have propositions
+like that put up to us!  There's always a mystery in every trip we
+take!  We found one on Lake Superior, and one in the Florida
+Everglades, and one at the top of the Rocky mountains and one in the
+Hudson Bay wilderness."
+
+"Yes, and we solved them, too!" grinned Will.  "And we're going to
+solve this one!  You remember about my seeing some one sneaking in
+here just ahead of us, don't you?"
+
+"Yes," was the answer.  "You thought it was that bum detective."
+
+"I think so yet," replied Will.
+
+"If it's the detective," asked George, "why didn't he give the alarm
+when he found that the mine was being flooded.  He might at least have
+done that and saved the company a great deal of expense and trouble."
+
+"Give it up," replied Will.  "I might ask you," he went on, "why he
+was rowing away into a flooded mine which is supposed to be deserted."
+
+"And I'd have to give you the answer you gave me," George declared.
+
+The boys could now hear the strokes of the oarsman who was in the lead
+quite regularly and distinctly.  Now and then he turned into
+crossheadings and chambers, as if to escape from their surveillance,
+but they kept steadily on after him, not taking into account the fact
+that they were leaving the light they had set at the shaft far out of
+view.
+
+"Perhaps we ought to turn back now," George proposed, in a short time,
+seeing that they came no nearer to the boat in advance.  "We left the
+main gangway some time ago, and we ought not to get too far away from
+it."
+
+Will turned and looked back, facing only inky blackness.
+
+"We should have stuck to the main gangway," he said.  "I don't even
+remember when we left it.  Is it very far back?"
+
+"Some distance," answered George.  "You see we followed this other
+boat without thinking what we were doing."
+
+"Perhaps, if we continue to follow the other boat,' it will lead us
+somewhere.  The fellow rowing must know something about the interior
+of the mine or he probably wouldn't be here!"
+
+"I've been listening for a minute or more, trying to catch sound of
+the fellow's oars," George went on, "but there's nothing doing.  I
+guess he's led us into a blind chamber and slipped away!"
+
+"We don't, seem to be lacking for excitement," Will suggested with a
+grin.  "We've lost Tommy and Sandy, and the machinery of the mine has
+been interfered with and the lower levels axe filling with water!  Any
+old time we start out to do things, there's a general mix-up!"
+
+"Aw, quit growling and listen a minute," suggested George.
+
+The boys listened only for a moment when the sound George had heard
+was repeated.  It was the call of the Wolf pack!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE BEAVER CALL
+
+
+"That's Tommy!" exclaimed Will.
+
+"I never knew that he belonged to the Wolf Patrol!" George observed.
+
+"He might give the call without belonging to the Patrol!" urged Will.
+
+The boys listened, but the sound was not repeated, although they
+called out the names of their chums and gave the Beaver call
+repeatedly.
+
+"I guess it was a dream," George suggested.
+
+"Then it was the most vivid dream I ever had!" Will declared.
+
+They rowed about the chamber for some moments, searching for the
+source of the call, but to no purpose.
+
+"Let's go back to the shaft," urged George.
+
+"I'm agreeable," answered Will.  "The only question now is whether we
+can find the shaft.  The water is so deep that all branches of the
+mine look alike to me!"
+
+In passing out of the chamber into another passage the boys were
+obliged to stoop low in order to avoid what is called a dip.
+
+After passing under the dip so close to the ceiling that the boys
+were obliged to lie down in the boat in order to protect their heads,
+they came to a large chamber which seemed to be fairly dry save in the
+center, where there was a depression of considerable size.
+
+"Nothing doing here!" Will exclaimed as he flashed his searchlight
+around the place.  "This chamber looks as if there hadn't been an
+ounce of coal mined here for a hundred years."
+
+"Then let's get out," George proposed, "and make our way back to the
+shaft if possible.  If we can't, we'll make noise enough to attract
+Canfield's attention and let him come and lead us out."
+
+"Here we go, then," cried Will, giving the boat a great push toward
+the dip.  "We can't get out any too fast."
+
+The boat came up against a solid projection of rock!
+
+"I don't seem to see any way out!" George exclaimed.
+
+"Well, it's there somewhere!" declared Will.
+
+"I see it now!" cried George.  "It's under water!"
+
+"Under water?" repeated Will.
+
+"Yes, under water!" answered George.  "If we get out of this hole
+before the pumps get to working we'll have to swim!"
+
+Will turned his searchlight on the dip and saw that it was now full
+clear to the down dropping roof.
+
+"I guess we'll have to swim," he agreed.
+
+"That black water doesn't look good to me," George exclaimed with a
+little shudder.  "It seems to me that I can see snakes and alligators
+wiggling in it from here.  Looks worse to me than the swamps of the
+Everglades!  And there was a quart of snakes to every pint of water
+down there!"
+
+"But we got to swim just the same!" urged Will.  "In half an hour from
+now the air in this chamber will be unbreathable.  There is no vent
+at all, now that the water fills the dip, and the coal gas is
+naturally seeping in all the time."
+
+"That's all right, too!" admitted George.  "But I'm not going to jump
+into that black water until I have to.  If a rope or something should
+twine around my legs while I was in there, I'd drop dead with fright!
+Besides," he went on, "the chances are that Canfield will get the
+pumps going before long now."
+
+The boys waited for a long half hour, during which time the water rose
+steadily.  It seemed certain that the mine was about to be flooded
+throughout all the lower levels.
+
+"Tommy and Sandy may have bumped into just such a situation as this,"
+Will said, as he pushed the boat from side to side in the hope of
+coming upon some exit from the place.
+
+"Serves 'em good and right!" exclaimed George.
+
+Will chuckled to himself and held up a wet hand high up toward the
+roof of the chamber or passage.
+
+"There's a current of air here!" he said.
+
+"Then we won't smother to dead!" George grunted.
+
+"And, look here," Will continued, as the boat bumped into a pyramid of
+shale which had been thrown up to within a few inches of the roof,
+"some one has been building this hill of refuse and using it for a
+refuge!"
+
+"It does look that way," George agreed.  "That shows that, at some
+time the water must have ascended to the very top of the wall.  We may
+have to climb up there ourselves in order to keep from getting our
+clothing soaked in that ink down there!"
+
+The water rose higher and higher in the passage, and it seemed to the
+boys that by this time most of the lower gangways were entirely
+impassible.
+
+"It doesn't seem to me that the water in this blooming old mine could
+rise any faster if the whole Mississippi river were turned into it!"
+cried George in a tone of disgust.  "If Canfield doesn't get his pumps
+going before long, he'll have a job here that'll take him all winter."
+
+"I presume he's doing the best he can," Will argued.  "For all we know,
+the boilers as well as the electric motors may have been tampered
+with.  That would be just our luck!"
+
+"I wonder what's become of that bum detective?" asked George after a
+short silence.  "We heard him rowing along in front of us one minute,
+and the next minute there wasn't a single sound to indicate that there
+was another boat in the mine."
+
+"As soon as I get out of this," Will stated, "I'm going to make it my
+business to find out whether that detective is regularly employed on
+this case.  He looks to me like a crook."
+
+It was dreary waiting there in the sealed-up chamber, and the boys
+found themselves dropping into long intervals of silence while they
+listened for the gurgle of the water which would indicate that the
+great pumps had been set in motion.
+
+During one of these intervals of silence they heard sounds which
+brought them to their feet in great excitement.  Almost unable to
+believe his ears, Will turned to George with a question on his lips:
+
+"Did you hear that?" he asked.
+
+"Of course I did!"
+
+"I did, too, but I thought I must be dreaming."
+
+"No dream about that!" replied George.  "That's the call of the Beaver
+Patrol!"
+
+"And that means that Tommy and Sandy are not far away!"
+
+"We heard the call of the Wolf Patrol not long ago," suggested George.
+"I wonder if this blooming old mine is chock full of Boy Scouts of
+assorted sizes.  There can't be too many here to please me!"
+
+The boys returned the Beaver call but no answer came.  At times they
+thought they heard whispers coming from the dark reaches of the
+cavern, but they were not quite certain.
+
+"There may be real Beavers in here for all we know!" suggested Will.
+
+"That's all you know about it!" chuckled George.  "Beavers only
+operate in running water."
+
+"Well, isn't that water out there running?" asked Will.
+
+"No jokes now!" replied George.  "I've got all I can endure now
+without standing for any of your alleged witticisms!"
+
+While the boys sat in the boat, occasionally moving it from side to
+side, a shaft of light appeared directly above the point where the
+shale had been heaped up.  It moved swiftly about for an instant and
+then dropped out of view.  It was a moment before either boy spoke.
+
+"That's some of Tommy's foolishness!" Will declared.
+
+George repeated the Beaver call several times, but no answer came.
+
+"That's a searchlight, anyway!" insisted Will.  "And I don't believe
+these ginks in the mines have electric searchlights to lug around with
+them!"
+
+Will unshipped an oar and struck the water with the flat of the blade
+several times, exerting his whole strength.
+
+"Keep it up!" advised George.  "That sounds exactly like a beaver's
+tail connecting with the surface of a stream!"
+
+"Yes, keep it up!" cried a voice out of the darkness.  "Keep it up,
+and perhaps some beaver'll come along and build a dam to get you out
+of that mess you're in!  You're always getting into trouble, you two!"
+
+"You've got your nerve with you!" exclaimed Willy, half-angrily.
+"Here you go out in the night and get lost, and we come out after you,
+and the mine gets flooded, and we get tied up between the solid wall
+and a bend in the passage, and then you blame us for getting into
+trouble!"
+
+"Can you climb?" chuckled Tommy, throwing the rays of his searchlight
+on the boat.  "If you can just mount up on that pile of shale and work
+your way through the opening between the two levels.  This might have
+been used as a sort of an air hole a few hundred years ago," he went
+on, "but I'll bet that not one out of a hundred of the miners of today
+know that there is an opening here!"
+
+Leaving the boat, the boys mounted the pile of shale and were soon
+making their way up the rugged face of the shaft in the direction of
+the level, which ran along above the one now being flooded.
+
+"Can you find your way out of this dump, now?" asked Will as the boys
+stood with their chums at the end of the long passage.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A TREACHEROUS FOE
+
+
+"There seems to be fewer twists and turns in this level than on the
+one below it," Tommy explained,  "and I guess we can find our way out
+readily enough.  If we don't," he went on, "I shall be obliged to eat
+a ton or two of coal to keep from starving to death."
+
+"Serves you right!" declared Will.  "You had no business getting up in
+the middle of the night and wandering off into the mine!"
+
+"What did you do?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"We waited until morning, and then enlisted the services of the
+caretaker," replied Will.  "So far as I can remember, this is about
+the nine hundredth relief expedition we've been out on in search of
+you boys!"
+
+"Seems to me," Tommy chuckled, "that you're the lads that were in need
+of the relief expedition.  We found you boxed up in a chamber in a
+boat."
+
+"But we wouldn't have been in any such mess if we hadn't started out
+to look you up!" George declared.
+
+"We should have been back before you got out of bed this morning, if
+some one hadn't cut our string," replied Sandy.  "We had a cinch on
+getting out, but some geezer led us a fool chase by cutting our cord
+and steering us around in a circle."
+
+"Did you see any one?" asked Will.
+
+"Not a soul!" was the reply.  "But there's some one in here, just the
+same.  We heard the call of the Wolf Patrol a long time ago and we've
+heard it several times since."
+
+"What do you mean by some one cutting your string?" asked George.
+
+"Why," replied Sandy, "we tied the loose end of a ball of twine to one
+of the shaft timbers and unwound the ball as we moved along, expecting
+to follow it back when we wanted to get out.
+
+"How do you know some one cut it?" asked Will.
+
+"Perhaps you broke it," George suggested.
+
+Sandy took a piece of the cord from his pocket and passed it over to
+George with a shy chuckle.
+
+"See if you can break that!" he said.
+
+George tried his best to break the string, but it remained firm under
+all his strength.
+
+The boys now fell into a discussion of the ways and means of getting
+out of the mine.
+
+"I believe," Sandy exclaimed, "That if we follow the current of air
+which the rising water is forcing out of this old shaft, we will come
+to the entrance.  As you all know, a current of air takes the shortest
+way to any given point, and this one ought to blow straight toward the
+shaft."
+
+"Great head, that, little boy!" laughed Tommy.
+
+After proceeding some distance the steady thud, thud of the pumping
+machinery was heard, and the boys understood that the efforts of the
+caretaker were at last bringing results.  The sounds also aided them
+in direction, and in a short time they stood at the shaft on the
+second level.
+
+When they came out to the timber work, Will, who was in the lead,
+motioned to the others to remain in the background.
+
+"What's doing now?" whispered Sandy.
+
+"There's a man working on the ladders," explained Will in a low
+whisper.  "I can't see him yet, but I can hear the sound of a saw."
+
+"He may be cutting the rungs," suggested Tommy.
+
+"That's the notion I had," replied Will.  "Suppose we all get around
+behind the air shaft and wait until we can find out what he is up to.
+It may be that bum detective, for all we know."
+
+"What would he be doing there?" questioned Sandy.
+
+"Sawing the rungs!" whispered Will.  "He wouldn't cut them down, of
+course, but he might saw them so that they would break under our
+weight and give us a drop of a couple of hundred feet."
+
+"It doesn't seem as if any human being would do a thing like that!"
+cried George.  "It would be a wicked thing to do!"
+
+While the boys whispered together, the sound of sawing continued.  The
+man engaged at the task was evidently unfamiliar with such work, for
+they heard him puffing and blowing as the saw cut through the wood.
+
+"He's cutting the rungs, all right!" Will said in a moment.  "And that
+cuts off our escape until the cables can be put in motion and the
+cages started.  I wish I had him by the neck!"
+
+"We'll get him by the neck, all right, before many days," Sandy cut
+in, "if we can only get a sight of him so as to be sure of his
+identity."
+
+Presently the man ceased working, and they heard him ascending the
+ladders, step by step.  In a moment the saw which he had been using
+dropped from his hands and clattered to the bottom of the shaft.
+
+Then they heard him springing swiftly forward, and directly they knew
+that he had reached the top.  The boys all looked disgusted.
+
+"And we never caught sight of him!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+Will now walked around to the front of the shaft and looked down.  The
+saw which had been used lay shining on the lower level.
+
+"I'm going down after that!" he said in a moment.
+
+"Yes, you are!" whispered Tommy.
+
+"I got to have it!" insisted Will.
+
+"Well, go on and get it, then," laughed Sandy.  "You've got to show
+me!"
+
+"I don't think he cut the rungs between this level and the next one,"
+George interposed.  "It may be safe to use the lower ladders."
+
+"I can soon find out!" Will declared.
+
+The cutting had been done between the second level and the top.  The
+ladders below seemed perfectly safe.  After testing them thoroughly,
+Will trusted himself on one of the rungs and let himself down slowly,
+bearing as much weight as was possible on the standards.
+
+He was at the bottom in a moment, and in another moment stood by the
+side of his chums with the saw in his hand.
+
+"I don't think that's so very much!" Tommy exclaimed.
+
+"Right here, then," Will explained, "is where you get your little
+Sherlock Holmes lesson!  This is a new saw, as you all see.  It
+probably never was used before.  Now the man who did the cutting
+bought this at some nearby store.  Don't you see what it means?"
+
+"That's a fact!" cried Tommy.  "We can find out who bought the saw,
+and so discover the gink who tried to commit murder by sawing the
+ladders."
+
+"And look here," Will went on, "do you see these threads hanging to
+the teeth of the saw?  Do you see the color?"
+
+"Blue!" replied the boys in a breath.
+
+"That's right, blue.  Now, what sort of a suit did the detective wear
+this morning?  It was blue, wasn't it?"
+
+"Sure it was!" replied George.  "A blue serge!  I noticed it
+particularly because it wasn't much of a fit."
+
+"Well, these are blue serge threads!" commented Will.
+
+"That's right, too," admitted Sandy.
+
+While the boys still stood at the second level they heard some one
+moving down from the top.  Will rushed around to the ladder and looked
+up.
+
+He could not see the face of the man who was climbing down, but he
+could see that he did not wear a blue serge suit.
+
+In a moment he called out to him, asking some trivial question
+regarding the action of the pumps.  When the man looked down he saw
+that it was Canfield.  The caretaker seemed surprised at finding the
+boys at the second level.  He kept on descending.
+
+"Wait!" Will called.  "Stop where you are!"
+
+"But I've got to find out what's the matter with the machinery at the
+bottom," the caretaker called out.  "There's something wrong there!"
+
+"Then you'd better take long steps," replied Will, "for if you put any
+weight on those rungs, you're likely to land at the bottom of the
+shaft.  The rungs have been cut!"
+
+"I can't believe that!" replied Canfield.
+
+"Suppose you look and see!"
+
+The caretaker advanced cautiously downward until he came to where a
+fine line of sawdust lay on one of the rungs.
+
+"Do you know who did this?" he asked.
+
+"We think we do," replied Will, "but this isn't any time for long
+stories.  The first thing for us to do is to get back into the breaker
+and cook Tommy and Sandy three or four breakfasts apiece!"
+
+"So you found them, did you?" asked Canfield.
+
+"No; we found them," shouted Tommy.
+
+"Well, how're you going to get out?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"Get a rope," directed Will, "and throw it over the sound rung lowest
+down, and we'll climb up until we can trust our weight on the ladder."
+
+This plan was followed, and in a short time the boys all stood, hungry
+and tired, in their room in the breaker.  Tommy made an instantaneous
+dive for the provisions which had been brought in the night before.
+
+"Nice old time we've had!" he exclaimed, with his mouth full-of pork
+and beans.  "I guess we're some Boy Scouts after all!"
+
+"I'm going to tie you up tonight!" Will declared.
+
+While the boys talked and ate the caretaker darted to the door leading
+to the passage which ended at the shaft.
+
+He returned in a moment looking both angry and frightened.
+
+"The pumps have, stopped!" he said.  "The line will probably be
+flooded before tomorrow morning.  The very devil seems to have taken
+full charge here today.  I never saw anything like it!"
+
+"There are boys in the mine who will be drowned!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"I'm not so sure of that," answered Canfield.  "It was only a
+suggestion on my part that the boys we are in search of have taken
+refuge under ground.  I think I must have been mistaken!"
+
+"Do you know, whether these breaker boys belonged to the Boy Scouts or
+not?" asked Will.  "Did you ever see any medals or badges on their
+clothing which told of Boy Scout experiences?"
+
+"Sure they belong to the Boy Scouts!" declared the caretaker, "and that
+is the very reason why I sent for Boy Scouts to help find them."
+
+"What Patrol did they belong to?" asked Will.
+
+"If you had heard them howling like wolves around the breaker night
+after night," was the reply, "you wouldn't ask what patrol they
+belonged to!"
+
+"Then they are in the mine!" shouted Tommy.
+
+We all heard the call of the pack, but the funny thing is that they
+wouldn't show themselves.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+"THEY WENT UP IN THE AIR"
+
+
+"There's something funny about those boys!" exclaimed Canfield.  "They
+seemed to be merry-hearted fellows, just a little bit full of mischief,
+but for some reason they never mixed with the others much."
+
+"Where did they come from when they came here?" asked Will.
+
+"The information in the letters I received from the attorney in charge
+of the case is that they came here from New York, not directly but by
+some roundabout way."
+
+"Did this attorney ever inform you why he wanted the boys found?"
+asked Tommy.  "Are we all working in the dark?"
+
+"He never told me why he wanted the boys found.  For all I know, they
+may be wanted for some crime, or they may be heirs to an immense
+property.  My instructions are to find them.  That's all!"
+
+"Where did these boys lodge?" asked Will.
+
+"They didn't have any regular room," was the reply.  "They slept in
+the breaker whenever the watchman would permit them to do so, and when
+he wouldn't, they threw stones at him and slept in the railroad yard
+somewhere.  But the strangest part of the whole business is the way
+they disappeared from sight."
+
+"You didn't tell us about that!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"I meant to," the caretaker answered.  "The last seen of them here
+they were at work on the breaker.  It was somewhere near the middle of
+the afternoon, and the cracker boss had been particularly ugly.  The
+two boys were often caught whispering together, and more than once the
+cracker boss had launched such trifles as half pound block of shale at
+them.  I happened to be on the outside just about that time."
+
+"The boys didn't go up in the air, did they?" asked Sandy with a
+chuckle.  "They haven't got wings, have they?"
+
+"To all intents and purposes, they went up into the air!" answered the
+caretaker.  "One moment they were on the breaker sorting slate and
+stuff of that kind out of the stream of coal which was pouring down
+upon them, and the next moment they were nowhere in sight!"
+
+"Had any strangers been seen talking with them?"
+
+"Now you come to a point that I should have mentioned before!" replied
+the caretaker.  "Two days before they left a strange boy came to the
+mine and went to work on the breaker.  He was an unusually
+well-mannered, well-dressed young fellow, and so the breaker boys
+called him a dude.  He resented this, of course, and there was a fight
+at the first quitting time.  These two boys, Jimmie, and Dick, stood
+by the new lad, and gave three or four of the tough little chaps who
+work on the breaker a good beating up."
+
+"Now we've got hold of something!" exclaimed Will.  "Were these three
+boys together much after that?"
+
+"No," was the reply.  "The new boy thanked Jimmie and Dick for helping
+him through his scrape, and that was about all.  They might have
+talked together for five minutes that night, but they were never seen
+in each other's company again so far as I know."
+
+"How long did this new boy stay here?" asked George.
+
+"He quit the next day."
+
+"He didn't go up in a pillar of fire, did he?" grinned Sandy.
+
+"No, he walked up to the office and asked if he could get his pay for
+the time he had worked.  The boss told him he'd have to wait until
+Saturday night, and he turned up his nose and walked out."
+
+"And where did he go?" asked George.
+
+"He said he was going down the river in a boat," answered the
+caretaker.  "He bought an old boat, stocked it with quite a supply of
+provisions, and started on his way.  The next day the boat was found
+bottom side up on a bar, and the lad's hat lay on the bank not far
+away."
+
+"Do you think he was drowned?" asked Sandy.
+
+"It would seem so."
+
+"Drowned nothing!" exclaimed Tommy.  "He sneaked those provisions
+into the mine under cover of the darkness and the three little rascals
+are feeding on them yet.  You can see the end of that without a
+telescope!"
+
+"Now, smarty!" exclaimed George.  "You've told us where the boys went,
+and where the provisions landed, and all that, now tell us why these
+kids hid themselves in the mine.  And while you are about it, you may
+as well tell why they gave the Wolf call and refused to reply."
+
+"This story," replied Tommy with a grin, "is not a novelette, complete
+in one number.  It's a serial story, and will be continued in our next
+issue.  What did you say about the pumps stopping, Canfield?"
+
+"They've stopped, all right!" the caretaker replied.
+
+"Are you going to let the ginks flood the mine?" asked Sandy.
+
+"While I was out a few moments ago," Canfield explained, "I notified
+one of the clerks in the company's office to send up a gang of men to
+repair the machinery.  They ought to be here by this time."
+
+"How long will it take to repair the pump?" asked Tommy.
+
+"It may take an hour and it may take twenty-four.
+
+"In the meantime," Tommy continued, "do you think you could send one
+of the county officers out to round up this bum detective?"
+
+"You mean that you want him watched?" asked Canfield.
+
+"Sure!" answered Tommy.  "He sawed the rungs in the shaft, didn't he?
+He could get ten years for that!"
+
+"All right," replied Canfield.  "I'll send word out and have him
+arrested if you are positive that he is the man that did the cutting."
+
+"We are positive that he's the man," replied Will, "but it'll spoil
+everything if you have him arrested.  We want to give him a free hand
+for a time, and see what he will do.  He's a crook, and he's bound to
+show it!  And another thing," the boy went on, "we don't want anyone
+to know that he is under suspicion.  We just want him watched."
+
+"You're handling the case," smiled Canfield, "and I'll take any steps
+you advise.  I can't tell you how sorry I am that I brought the
+detective in here this morning!"
+
+"Well," Will said, "we put up a bluff about getting out of town and
+perhaps we can make that stick.  We can take a train out and come back
+in on a lonely freight, and get into the mine without his knowing
+anything about it.  The mine is the best place to work from, anyway!"
+
+"That's why I wanted to know how soon the mine could be pumped out!"
+stated Tommy.  "I don't care about wading around in a mess of water
+that's blacker than a stack of black cats."
+
+"I think I can have the mine fairly dry by the time you boys get out
+of town and back again!" laughed Canfield.
+
+"Well," Tommy said, "then you'd better got a couple of dry-goods boxes
+and fill them full of good things to eat, and drop 'em down to the
+first level.  Perhaps you know of a cozy little chamber there where we
+can set up housekeeping."
+
+"I know just the place," said the caretaker.  "To the left of the old
+tool house there's a room where odd articles of every description have
+been stored for any number of years.  The blacksmith and the fire-boss
+used to go there to smoke and tell stores, if I remember right."
+
+"Does anyone ever go there now?" asked Will.
+
+"Not that I know of," was the reply.
+
+"Then we'll drop down there some time towards morning," Will decided.
+"And in the meantime," he added, with a wink at his chums, "we'll be
+looking for a boy tramp out in the railroad yards."
+
+"What do you mean by that"' asked the caretaker.
+
+"Oh, I've just got an idea," replied Will, "that there's a kid hanging
+around this part of the country whom we ought to interview."
+
+"But I don't understand."
+
+"You wait until we get hold of him, and you'll understand all right!"
+laughed Will.  "We just need that boy!"
+
+"But how do you know there is such a boy?" urged the caretaker.
+
+"He gets it out of a dream book!" Tommy chuckled.
+
+"Do you mean to say that there is some go-between the boys who may or
+may not be in the mine and some persons outside who are interested in
+them?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"I didn't say anything of the kind!" replied Will.
+
+"There are times," Tommy explained to Canfield, "when the gift of
+frank speech is taken away from Will, so you mustn't blame him for not
+answering.  He'll tell you all about it when the time comes."
+
+The caretaker went away with a puzzled look on his honest face.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WHO DISCOVERED THE LEAK?
+
+
+"You've got to explanation me," George laughed as the caretaker left
+the room, and the boys began picking up their clothing, preparatory to
+the alleged journey.  "I can't understand what you mean by saying that
+you'll watch out for a boy tramp in the railroad yards."
+
+"It's a sure thing, isn't it?" Will asked, "that the boys we are in
+search of are in the mine?  We don't know what they're in there for.
+They may be hiding there because of some fool notion they have in
+their heads, or they may have been sent here for some definite
+purpose."
+
+"You bet they've been sent here for some definite purpose," George
+replied.  "They never came here to work on the breaker without having
+some well-defined motive.  Boys answering to their description don't
+accept such jobs as they accepted here!"
+
+"Well, the boys are in the mine," Will continued.  "As stated, we
+don't know what they're there for, but we know they're there.  Now,
+this third boy comes to the mine and works just long enough to get in
+touch with the other two.  Then he disappears."
+
+"Buys a lot of provisions and goes down the river to leave his hat on
+the bank!" laughed Tommy.  "I guess that was a pretty poor imitation
+of a suicide or a drowning accident, either!"
+
+"But this boy didn't get to be intimate with the two breaker boys,"
+contended George.  "He talked with them about two minutes after the
+fight, according to Canfield, but paid no further attention to them
+after that.  If he had any secret understanding with them, he must
+have done a whole lot of talking in a mighty short space of time."
+
+"The right kind of a boy can say a good deal in a minute and half!"
+laughed Tommy.  "But suppose we let Will go on and explanation us
+about that boy tramp in the railroad yards.  I think I know what he's
+getting at, but I'm not quite certain.  Go on, Will, it's up to you."
+
+"In order to make the connection," laughed Will.  "I will state for
+the third time that we know that the boys are in the mine.  It may
+also be well to state, once more, that we are reasonably certain that
+this other boy came to the mine for the specific purpose of
+communicating with the other two.  Now this boy didn't drop into the
+river.  He dropped the provisions he bought for the boat into the coal
+mine, and left them there for the consumption of the two boys inside.
+That's reasonable, isn't?"
+
+"Fine deduction, as Sherlock Holmes would say to Watson!" laughed
+George.
+
+"But this third boy," Will went on, "doesn't go into the mine.  He
+stays outside to serve as a means of communication between the boys
+who are hiding in the mine and some interested person or persons on
+the outside.  That's perfectly clear, isn't it?
+
+"That'll do very well for a theory," replied George.
+
+"I'll go you a plate of cookies," argued Sandy, "that Will is right,
+and that this third boy is hanging around taking messages from the
+two boys in the mine and also to the two boys in the mine."
+
+"Didn't I say it was all right for a theory?" chuckled George.
+
+"Now, the point is this," Will continued.  "What are those boys in the
+mine for?  What do they want there?  Why didn't they answer our Boy
+Scout challenge when we replied to their call of the pack?"
+
+"If you don't ask so many questions, you won't get so many negative
+answers," Sandy advised.  "We're here to find the boys, and I don't
+see that it makes any difference to us what they're in there or not."
+
+"But we've found the boys now," contended Tommy.  "We haven't got our
+hands on them yet, of course, but we know they're in there, and we
+know it's only a question of time when we get hold of them."
+
+"Well," Will insisted, "I'm going to find a motive before I quit the
+case.  I'm going to know who sent those boys here, and all about it,
+before I make any report to Mr. Horton."
+
+"Go as far as you like," laughed Tommy.  "My bump of curiosity is
+growing half an inch a day, and will continue to spread out until I
+find out exactly what those boys are doing burrowing in a deserted
+mine."
+
+"Now, we'll get back to the point we started from," Will explained.
+"This boy who is undoubtedly doing duty outside the mine in the
+interests of the persons who sent the two boys in, furnishes the clue
+to the whole situation!  When we find him, and find out what he's up
+to, and trace any communications he may make back to their original
+source, we'll have the whole case tied up tight!"
+
+"That's right!" declared Tommy.  "We'll have the case tied up tight if
+we succeed in getting hold of this third boy."
+
+"Oh, go on!" laughed Sandy.  "We'll be picking third boys and fourth
+boys and fifth boys out of the air the next thing you know.  We never
+went away on a Boy Scout expedition yet that we didn't find all manner
+of kids hanging around on purpose to be discovered.  We found them on
+Old Superior; and in the Everglades; and on the Great Continental Divide;
+and up in the Hudson Bay country, we began to think we had stumbled on
+the center of population so far as Boy Scouts were concerned!"
+
+"There's just one thing that's likely to make us trouble," Will
+resumed.  "And that is the fact that Canfield very foolishly slopped
+over to Ventner when explaining the purpose of our visit here.  That
+bum detective knows now that we're here to search the mine.  Of course
+he might have received, as Canfield says, most of his information from
+outside sources, but the caretaker should have thrown him off the
+track instead of telling him exactly what our mission here was."
+
+"But Ventner came here to search for the boys himself!" George broke
+in.  "At least, he says that he did."
+
+"There's a mystery about the whole matter," Sandy declared, "and I'd
+like to help clear it up from beginning to end!"
+
+"We're likely to have a chance!" laughed Tommy.
+
+"What are we going to do all the afternoon?" George asked.
+
+"Wander around town," smiled Will, "and find out about the evening
+train, and ask fool questions about the pumps and the mine, and laugh
+at the idea of anybody living in there.  That'll give Ventner the idea
+that we're going for good,  I reckon.  He's a pretty bum skate to pose
+as a detective!"
+
+"I'll tell you what I'm going to do most of the afternoon!" Tommy
+declared.  "I'm going to the hay!  I never felt so bunged up for want
+of sleep in my innocent life."
+
+"Haven't you forgotten something?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Sure!" shouted Tommy.  "I'm forgetting to eat!"
+
+"And you're forgetting something else!" insisted Sandy.
+
+"Nix on the forget!" declared Tommy.  "When I forget my eatings and
+sleepings, the world will come to an end!"
+
+"You forgot to read a chapter in your dream book!" said Sandy.
+
+"Never you mind that dream book," Tommy replied.  "Whenever you want
+to find the answer to any puzzle, you look in that dream book!"
+
+After eating another hearty meal the boys, having already packed their
+wardrobes, locked the door of their room and addressed themselves to
+slumber.
+
+They were awakened about five o'clock by a loud knocking on the door,
+and presently they heard the voice of Canfield calling to them.
+
+"Wake up, boys!" he cried.  "I have good news for you!"
+
+"All right, let her go!" shouted Tommy.
+
+"The pumps are working, and the water is lowering in the mine!"
+
+"That's nice!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"And we've found out what caused the sudden flooding," the caretaker
+went on.  "It seems that a partition, or wall, between the Labyrinth
+and the Mixer mine unaccountably gave way.  The Mixer mine has been
+flooded for a long time and, as it lies above the level of the
+Labyrinth, the water naturally flowed into our mine as soon as the
+wall was down."
+
+"But what caused the partition to fall?" asked Will, opening the door
+for the admission of the caretaker.
+
+"No one knows!" was the answer.
+
+"If you look about a little," Tommy suggested, "I think you'll find
+traces of dynamite.  Who discovered the break in the dividing wall?"
+
+"A gang under the leadership of Ventner, the detective!" was the
+reply.
+
+The caretaker was very much surprised and not a little annoyed at the
+effect his answer had upon the four boys.
+
+"I don't see anything humorous about that!" he said as the lads threw
+themselves down on the bunks and roared with laughter.
+
+"It looks funny to me!" Tommy replied.  "It we had never showed up
+here, the mine wouldn't have been flooded.  As soon as we start away
+or promise to leave the district, which amounts to the same thing,
+this cheap skate of a detective finds the break, and all is well
+again!"
+
+"Why, you don't think that he had anything to do with the trouble at
+the mine, do you?" questioned the caretaker.
+
+"Oh, of course not!" replied Sandy.  "Ventner had nothing to do with
+cutting the ladder.  That fellow will land in state's prison if he
+keeps on trying to murder boys by sawing ladder rungs!"
+
+"I had forgotten that,' said Canfield.
+
+"Well, don't forget that this man Ventner is playing the chief
+villain's role in this drama!" Tommy advised.  "And another thing you
+mustn't forget," the boy continued, "is that you're not to say a word
+to him that will inform him that he is suspected."
+
+"I think I can remember that!" replied the caretaker.
+
+The boys prepared a hasty supper and then, suit cases in hand, started
+for the little railway station.  There they inquired about the arrival
+and departure of trains, bought tickets, and made themselves as
+conspicuous as possible about the depot.
+
+"Keep your eye out for the third boy," George chuckled, as the lads
+walked up and down the platform.
+
+"Don't get excited about the third boy," Will replied.  "We'll find
+him when the right time comes!"
+
+"There's Ventner!" exclaimed Tommy as the detective came rushing down
+the platform.  "Of course the good, kind gentleman would want to bid
+us farewell!"
+
+"I'd like to crack him over the coco!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"I'll bet he's got some kind of a fake story to tell," suggested Will.
+"He looks like a man who had been working his imagination overtime!"
+
+"News of the two boys!" shouted the detective as he came up smiling.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE BOY IN THE "EMPTY"
+
+
+"Didn't I tell you," whispered Will, "that he is there with a product
+of his imagination?  If you leave it to him, the two boys we're in
+search of are somewhere on the Pacific slope!"
+
+"He must think we're a lot of suckers to take in any story he'll
+tell!" whispered Tommy.  "A person that couldn't get next to his game
+ought to be locked up in the foolish house!"
+
+"I've just heard from a railway brakeman," Ventner said, rushing up to
+the boys with an air of importance, "that the two lads you are in
+search of were seen leaving a box car at a little station in Ohio.  I
+don't just recall the name of the station now, but I can find it by
+looking on the map!  It seems the lads left here on the night following
+their departure from the breaker, and stole their passage to this little
+town I'm telling you about."
+
+"Good thing you came to the depot," declared Will.  "We should have
+been out of town in ten minutes more."
+
+"Where is this town?" asked George, thinking it best to show great
+interest in the statement made by the detective.
+
+"It's a little place on the Lake Erie & Western road!" was the answer.
+
+The detective took a railroad folder from his pocket and consulted a
+map.  It seemed to take him a long time to decide upon a place, but he
+finally spread the map out against the wall of the station and laid
+his finger on a point on the Lake Erie & Western railroad.
+
+"Nankin is the name of the place.  Strange I should have forgotten the
+name of the place.  They were put out of the car at Nankin, and are
+believed to have started down the railroad right of way on foot."
+
+"But you said they were seen leaving the car at Napkin!" Tommy cut in.
+"Now you say they were put out of the car!"
+
+"Well, they were chased out of the car, and that covers both
+statements," replied the detective somewhat nervously.
+
+"Thank you very much for the information!" Will exclaimed as the train
+the boys were to take came rolling into the station.  "The pointer is
+undoubtedly a good one, and we'll take a look at the country about
+Nankin."
+
+There was a crossing not more than six miles from the station where
+the boys had taken the train and they were all ready to jump when the
+engineer slowed down and whistled his note of warning.  It was quite
+dark, although stars were showing in a sky plentifully scattered over
+with clouds and, as the boys dropped down out of the illumination of
+the windows as soon as they struck the ground, they were not seen to
+leave the train by any of the passengers.
+
+In a moment the train rushed on, leaving the four standing on the
+roadbed looking disconsolately in the direction of the town.
+
+"Now for a good long hike!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"It's for your own good!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"I can always tell when something is for my own good," Tommy
+contended.
+
+"You don't look it!" chuckled Sandy.
+
+"When anything's for my own good," the boy continued, "it's always
+disagreeable!  It makes me think of a story I read once where the man
+complained that everything he ever wanted in this world was either
+expensive, indigestible or immoral."
+
+"Well, get on the hike!" laughed George.  "You can stand here and
+moralize till the cows come home, and it won't move you half an inch
+in the direction of the mine!"
+
+"And look here," Will exclaimed as the boys started up the grade,
+"when we get within sight of the lights of the station, we must
+scatter and keep our traps closed!  We can all make for the mine by
+different routes.  Ventner thinks we are out of town now, and the
+chances are that he'll be plugging around trying to accomplish some
+purpose known only to himself.  For my part I don't believe he is
+employed on the same case we are!  He's working for some outside
+parties!"
+
+"That's the way it strikes me!" George agreed.  "If the detective had
+been honestly trying to assist us, the mine wouldn't have been
+flooded, the pumps wouldn't have broken down, and the electric motors
+would have been found in excellent working order."
+
+"Did you notice the suit he had on when he stood talking with us at
+the station?" asked Will.  "That was a blue serge suit, wasn't it?"
+
+"It surely was!" Tommy declared, quick to catch the point.  "And there
+was a tear down the front of it which looked as if it had been made by
+the scraping of a saw!  I guess if you'll inspect the shreds we found
+on the saw with the breaks in that coat front you'll find where the
+saw got in its work, all right!"
+
+"And there was a cut on his, hand, too!"  Sandy observed.  "Looked
+like he had bounced the saw off one of the rungs on top of a finger."
+
+"Oh, he's a clever little boy all right!" Tommy cut in.  "But he
+forgot to leave his brass band at home when he went out to cut into
+that ladder!  If he does all his work the way he did that job, he'll
+be sitting in some nice, quiet state's prison before he's six months
+older."
+
+When the boys came within a quarter of a mile of the station lights,
+they parted, Will and George turning off  from the right of way and
+Sandy and Tommy keeping on for half a dozen rods.  When the four boys
+were finally clear of the tracks they were walking perhaps twenty rods
+apart, and at right angles with the right of way.
+
+"Now, as we approach the mine," Will cautioned his companion, "keep
+your eye out for Ventner and this third boy.  They are both likely to
+be chasing around in the darkness."
+
+The route to the mine, taken by Tommy and his chum crossed a network
+of tracks, led up to the weigh-house and so on into the breaker.  As
+they came to a line of empty cars standing on a spur they heard a
+movement in one of the empties and crouched down to listen.
+
+"There's some one in there!" declared Tommy.
+
+"Some old bum, probably!"
+
+This from Sandy who had recently bumped his shins on a pile of ties
+and was not in a very pleasant humor.
+
+"It may be the boy we're looking for!" urged Tommy.
+
+Sandy sat down on the end of a tie and rubbed his bruised shin
+vigorously, muttering and protesting, against railroad yards in
+general and this one in particular as he did so.
+
+Tommy made his way under the empty and sat listening, his ear almost
+against the bottom of the car.  Presently he heard a movement above
+and then it seemed to him that something of considerable weight was
+being dragged across the floor.  This was followed in a moment by a
+slight groan, and then a shadowy figure leaped from the open side door
+and started away in the darkness.
+
+Now Sandy had been warned to hang onto the third boy like grim death
+if he caught sight of him.  He saw this figure bounce out of the car
+and start, away.  Therefore, he promptly reached out a foot and
+tripped the unknown to the ground.
+
+He fell with a grunt of anger and pain and lay rolling on the cinders
+which lined the roadbed for a moment without speaking.  In the
+meantime, Tommy had crawled out from under the car and stood ready to
+seize any second person who might make his appearance.
+
+Almost immediately a second body came bouncing out of the empty.
+
+Instead of  starting away on a run, however, the second person stopped
+where Sandy stood beside the wiggling figure and looked down upon it.
+
+"Hand him one!" he said in a boy's voice.
+
+"Who is it?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Don't know!" was the reply.
+
+"What was he doing to you?"
+
+"He was trying to rob me!"
+
+"I don't think a man would get rich, robbing people who ride in
+empties!" laughed Sandy.  "I shouldn't think their bank rolls would
+make much of a hit with a bold, bad highwayman!"
+
+"There's men riding the rods," was the reply, "who would kill a boy
+for a dime!  If I wasn't opposed to cruelty to animals, I'd give this
+fellow a beating up right now.  He tried to drag me from the car by
+the leg and nearly broke my ankle!"
+
+"I heard him dragging you across the floor!"  Tommy said, coming up to
+where the two stood.  "Can you see who it is?" he added.
+
+"He's just a tramp!" the other replied.  "I saw him sneaking around
+the empties just before dark."
+
+"Why were you sleeping in an empty?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Because I like plenty of fresh air!" replied the boy with a chuckle.
+
+While the boys talked the tramp arose and sneaked away, limping over
+the ties as if tickled to death to get out of the way of the three
+youngsters.
+
+As he disappeared in the darkness Tommy turned to the boy who had
+dropped out of the car to ask him a question.
+
+The boy was nowhere to be seen.
+
+"Now we've gone and done it!" cried Sandy.
+
+"I guess we have!" agreed Tommy.  "We've let the third boy get away
+from us!  And we couldn't have done a worse thing!" he went on,
+"because the boys in the mine will know that we are still in this
+vicinity!"
+
+While the boys stood blaming themselves the sharp call of the Wolf
+pack came to them.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+A KNOCK AT THE DOOR
+
+
+When Will and George came to the back of the weigh-house they heard
+some one moving about at the front.
+
+"That's probably the caretaker, taking his last look for the night,"
+suggested Will.  "He pokes around all the outbuildings every night
+before he goes to bed.  At least, he is supposed to."
+
+"But this fellow hasn't got any lantern," urged George.
+
+"The plot deepens!" chuckled Will.
+
+"Can you crawl around there and see who it is," asked George, "or
+shall I go?  It may be a thief, or it may be Ventner, or it may be
+this boy we're looking for.  Anyway, we want to know who it is!"
+
+"I'll go!" Will suggested, "and don't you make any racket if you hear
+something doing there.  The one thing to do at this time is to keep
+our presence here a profound secret."
+
+Will moved cautiously around the angle of the weigh-house just in time
+to see a figure leaving the side of the building and moving toward the
+breaker.  There was a little side door in the breaker not far from the
+weigh-house, and it was toward this that the prowler was making his
+way.
+
+Half way to the little house the fellow stumbled over some obstruction
+in his path and fell sprawling to the ground.  He arose with an
+impatient oath and moved on again, but not before the watcher had
+recognized both the figure and the voice.  Will, turned back to where
+George stood.  "That's Ventner," he said.
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Dead sure!"  There was a short silence.  "What can we do now?"
+
+"I don't know of anything we can do, unless it is to watch the rascal
+and see where he goes," answered the other.  "The chances are that
+he's trying to get into the mine!"
+
+"That shows the fellow is a crook!" Will contended.  "He has full
+permission to enter the mine at any time he sees fit."
+
+"Of course, he's a crook!" agreed George.  "What would he be sneaking
+around here in the night for, if he wasn't engaged in some underhand
+game?  You just wait until we get into the mine," the boy continued,
+"and we'll give him a ghost scare that'll hold him for a while."
+
+As Ventner approached the little side door leading into the breaker, a
+light flashed in the window of the room which the boys had occupied,
+and directly Canfield's voice was heard asking:
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+"Now if he's on the square, he'll answer!" whispered Will.
+
+There was no reply whatever, and in a moment the caretaker called
+again, this time rather peremptorily:
+
+"What are you prowling about the yard for?"
+
+The detective dropped to his knees and began crawling away.
+
+"If I see you around here again," the caretaker shouted in a braver
+tone now that the intruder was taking his departure, "I'll do some
+shooting!"
+
+Evidently giving over the attempt to enter the mine at that time, the
+detective arose to his feet as soon as he gained the shelter of the
+weigh-house, and walked away, passing as he did so, within a few feet
+of where the boys were standing.
+
+"That settles that bum detective, so far as we are concerned!" Will
+said to his chum, in a whisper.  "We knew before that he was playing a
+rotten game on us, but we didn't know that, his plans included such
+surreptitious visits to the mine."
+
+After making sure that the detective was not within sight or sound,
+Will and George tapped softly at the little door and were admitted by
+the caretaker.  Five minutes later they were joined by Tommy and
+Sandy.
+
+"Were you boys out there a few moments ago?" asked Canfield.
+
+"Nix!" replied George.  "That was Ventner.  We saw him from the
+weigh-house.  He was trying to sneak his way into the mine!"
+
+"But he has full permission to enter at any time he sees fit!" urged
+the caretaker.  "It doesn't seem as if he would attempt to steal his
+way in during the night. You must be mistaken!"
+
+"Yes,  and perhaps we were mistaken about the sawing of the ladder,
+too!" Tommy broke in.
+
+"Yes, we may all be mistaken about that."
+
+"Not so you could notice it!" declared Sandy.
+
+"If you look at the thief's coat, you'll see that he didn't do all the
+sawing on the rungs of the ladder.  We've got him too dead to skin!"
+
+Without any lights being shown on the surface, the boys were conducted
+down the ladder to the first level.  There they found a room very
+cozily furnished, indeed.  A lounge from the office, a couple of good
+sized cupboards, and a large table had been brought down, together
+with a serviceable rug and numerous chairs, and the apartment presented
+an unexpectedly homelike appearance.
+
+The current was on, and two electric lamps made the room as light as
+day.  The cooking was to be done over electric coils so that the
+presence of the boys would not be disclosed by smoke.  One of the
+ventilating pipes which supplied the offices in the vicinity of the
+shaft with fresh air passed through the room, so there was no lack of
+ozone.
+
+"Have we got plenty of eatings?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Plenty!" was the reply.  "I have arranged for fresh meat, milk and
+vegetables to be brought in every evening."
+
+"Talk about your bull-headed, obstinate men!" exclaimed Tommy, as the
+caretaker finally took his departure.  "That fellow takes the cake!
+He knows very well that we caught Vintner in the act of sawing on the
+ladder, and he knows, too, that we heard Wolf calls while we were in
+the mine.  Still he shakes his head and says that he don't know about
+the boys being there, and don't know about that bum detective being
+crooked.  If you could get a saw and operate on his head, you'd find
+it solid bone!"
+
+"You'll feel better after you get supper!" Sandy declared.
+
+"This isn't any grouch!" insisted Tommy.  "This is the true story of
+that man's life!  If I had a dollar for every time he doesn't know
+anything, I'd be the richest boy in the world!"
+
+"Are you thinking of going down the mine tonight?" asked George, with
+a wink at Will.  "We might try another midnight excursion."
+
+"If you kids go into the mine tonight," declared Will, "I'll send you
+both back to Chicago on the first train!"
+
+"Aw, how are you going to find these boys if you don't go into the
+mine?" demanded Tommy.  "I suppose you'll want us to wait till
+daylight when the owners will be looking around to see if any damage
+was done by the inundation.  The best time is at night!"
+
+"Look here," Will argued, "we've got to do more than lay hands on the
+boys!  We've got to find out why they are hiding in the mine."
+
+"That's the correct word," agreed George.  "Hiding is the word that
+expresses the situation exactly!"
+
+"There is no doubt," Will continued, "that the boys were sent here by
+some one for some specific purpose.  They are hiding in the mine with
+a well-defined motive.  I have an idea that we might be able to find
+them in twenty-four hours, but what is more important, is to find out
+what they are up to."
+
+"Well, in order to get the whole story, we'll have to pretend that we
+are looking for them and can't find them!" George said.
+
+"That's right!" laughed Tommy.  "Give them plenty of rope and they'll
+hang themselves.  We may as well  have the whole story while we're at
+it."
+
+Before preparing their beds for the night, the boys paid a visit to
+the shaft and made their way down to the rungs which had been cut.
+They found that they had been replaced by new ones.
+
+There was still water in the lower levels of the mine, but it was
+slowly disappearing through the sump, and the indications were that it
+would be dry by morning.  The boys listened intently for some evidence
+of occupancy as they moved up and down the shaft, but all was still.
+
+"This would be a good place to tell a ghost story," Tommy chuckled as
+they moved back to their room on the first level.
+
+"There's about a million stories now, entitled "The Ghost of the
+Mine!" declared Sandy.  "Perhaps however," he went on, "one more
+wouldn't hurt."
+
+"If I see a ghost tonight," declared Tommy, "it'll be in my dreams!"
+
+Sandy and Tommy were sound asleep on their cots as soon as supper was
+over, and Will and George were getting ready to retire when the soft
+patter of a light footstep sounded in the vicinity of the shaft.
+
+"Rats must be thick in the mine!" suggested George.
+
+"Rats nothing!" declared Will.  "Those two youngsters are prowling
+about in order to see what we are up to!"
+
+As he spoke the boy arose, turned off the electric light and stepped
+out into the passage.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+A MIDNIGHT ROBBER
+
+
+There was a quick scamper of feet as Will stepped out, then silence!
+
+"Where did he go?" asked George, joining big chum on the outside.
+
+"Down the ladder!" replied Will.
+
+"Why don't we go and see where he went?"
+
+"That might be a good idea," Will replied.  "Do you think it's safe
+for us to try to navigate that shaft in the dark?"
+
+"We can stick to the ladders, can't we?" asked George.
+
+"We ought to find out where the kids hang out," Will argued.  "I'd
+like to get my hands on one of them!"
+
+"I don't think we're likely to do that tonight," George answered.
+"It seems to me that about the only way we can catch those fellows is
+to set a bear trap.  They seem to be rather slippery."
+
+Will, clad only in pajamas and slippers, moved toward the shaft and
+looked down.  It was dark and still below, and he turned back with a
+little shudder.  The situation was not at all to his liking.
+
+"Well, are you going down?" asked George.
+
+"Sure, I'm going down!" Will answered.  "I'm only waiting to get up my
+nerve!  It looks pretty dreary down there.  If we could use a light I
+wouldn't mind, but it's pretty creepy going down that hole in the
+darkness."
+
+
+"Then suppose we wait until morning," suggested George.
+
+Will leaned against the shaft timbers and laughed.  "It'll be just as
+dark in here in the morning, as it is now!" he said.  "I think we'd
+better go on down tonight and see if we can locate the fellows."
+
+The two boys passed swiftly down the ladder, paused a moment at the
+second level, and then passed on to the third.  The gangways leading
+out from the shaft were reasonably dry now.  Lower down the dip they
+were still under a few inches of water.
+
+"I don't see how we're going to discover anybody down in this blooming
+old well!" George grumbled.  "There might be a regiment of state
+troops here an we wouldn't be able to see a single soldier!"
+
+"We can't show a light, for all that!" declared Will.  "We've just got
+to wait and see if they won't be kind enough to show a light."
+
+"You guessed it," chuckled George, whispering softly in his chum's
+ear, "there's a glimmer of light, now!"
+
+"I see it!" Will replied.
+
+The boys left the ladder and moved out into the center gangway.  They
+could see a light flickering some distance in advance, and had no
+difficulty in following it.
+
+"That's an electric torch!" Will commented.
+
+"Perhaps, if we follow along, we'll be able to track them to their
+nest," George suggested, "and, still, I don't care about getting very
+far away from the shaft.  We might get lost in these crooked
+passages."
+
+"Yes," replied Will.  "Some one might head us off, too.  I don't care
+about being held up here in pajamas."
+
+The mine was damp and cold, and a wind was sweeping up the passage
+toward the shaft.  The boys shivered as they walked, yet kept
+resolutely on until the light they were following left the main
+gangway and disappeared in a cross heading.
+
+"That means 'Good-night' for me," whispered Will, "for I'm not going to
+get out beyond the reach of the rails.  I guess we'll have to go back
+and invent some other means of trapping those foxy boys."
+
+As Will spoke the light reappeared and moved on down the gangway
+again.  Then, for the first time, the boys saw a figure outlined
+against the illumination.  Will caught his chum by the arm excitedly.
+
+"That isn't one of the boys at all!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Well, how large a population do you think this mine has!" demanded
+George.  "If it isn't one of the boys, who is it?"
+
+"That bum detective!" answered Will.
+
+"So he got in here at last, did he?" chuckled George.  "Well, it's up
+to us to find out what he's doing in here!"
+
+"Do you think that is the gink who was prowling around our room?"
+asked Will.  "If he is, then our little trip in the country doesn't
+count for much!"'
+
+"The fellow who visited us," George argued, "was light and quick on
+his feet.  This bum detective waddles a lot like an old cow."
+
+"Then we've passed the boy who called to see us, and failed to leave a
+card," grinned Will.  "We may meet him as we return!"
+
+"Here's hoping we bump straight into him if we do meet him," George
+exclaimed.  "I'm just aching to get my hands on that fellow!"
+
+"I'm not particularly anxious to catch him just yet," Will suggested.
+"I want to find out what the kids are up to before we pounce down upon
+them."
+
+While the boys stood in the passage, whispering together, the light
+moved on until it came to a chamber which seemed to be rather shallow,
+for the reflection of the searchlight was still in the gangway.
+
+"Now we've got him!" exclaimed Will.  "I think I remember that chamber,
+and, unless I'm very much mistaken, it opens only onto this passage!
+While he's poking around in there, we'll sneak up and see what's he's
+doing!"
+
+Before the boys reached the entrance to the chamber they heard the
+sounds of a pick.  When they came nearer and looked in they saw the
+detective poking away at heap of "gob" which lay in one corner of the
+excavation.  He worked industriously, and apparently without fear of
+discovery.  Now and then he stooped down to peer into a crevice in the
+wall, but soon went on again.
+
+"I wonder if he thinks he can find two boys in that heap of refuse?"
+laughed George.  "I wonder why he don't use a microscope."
+
+The detective busied himself at the heap of refuse for a considerable
+length of time, and then began further Investigation of little breaks
+in the wall.  Using his pick to enlarge the openings he made a
+systematic search of one break after another.
+
+"Looks like he might be hunting after some pirate treasure," George
+chuckled.  "I never heard of Captain Kidd sailing over into the
+sloughs of Pennsylvania.  Did you?"
+
+"That tells the story!" Will whispered.  "The fellow is here on some
+mission of his own.  That story of his about being in quest of the
+boys is all a bluff!  I reckon he had heard somewhere that two boys
+were missing and came here with the fairy tale!"
+
+"Well, he's got a good, large mine to look in if he's in search of
+treasure," George suggested.  "He can spend the rest of his days here,
+provided the operators don't get sore on him."
+
+While the boys looked, Ventner turned toward the entrance to the
+chamber, and they scampered away.  Turning back, they saw him pass out
+of the place where he had been working and into a similar excavation
+farther on.  There he worked as industriously as before.
+
+"You see how it is," Will suggested.  "The fellow is hunting for
+something, and doesn't know where to look for it!  So it's all right
+to let him go ahead with his quest for hidden wealth, or whatever it
+is he's after.  When he finds it, we'll not be far away!"
+
+"I like this walking about in my naked feet," George grunted in a
+moment.  "I had my slippers on when I came down the ladder, but I
+either had to take them off and carry them in my hands or lose them in
+the mud."
+
+"Same here!"  Will said.  "I'm going back to my little cot bed right
+now and go to sleep.  I think we have the detective sized up and we
+can catch the kids some other night."
+
+"Me for the hay, too," George exclaimed.  "I don't think I was ever
+quite so sleepy in my life!"
+
+"Now, on the way back," Will cautioned, "we ought to keep still and
+keep a sharp lookout for the person who was sneaking around our
+quarters."
+
+"Whoever it was may be between us and the shaft," George suggested.
+
+"If I thought so," Will argued, "I'd just stand around and wait until
+they pass us on the way in.  I don't want to find those boys just
+now.  There's a mystery connected with this mine which the caretaker
+knows nothing about, and which Mr. Horton never referred to when he
+sent us down here.
+
+"We wouldn't be able to breathe if we didn't discover an air of
+mystery every fifteen minutes," George declared.
+
+Half way back to the shaft the boys, who were walking very softly in
+their stockinged feet, heard a rattle as of a moving stone or piece
+of coal in the passage, and at once drew up against the side wall.
+
+While they stood there, scarcely daring to breathe, they sensed that
+some one was passing them in the darkness.  The tread was light and
+brisk, and they thought they heard a soft chuckle as the unseen figure
+breezed by them.
+
+"I'll bet the lad who was listening near our door never came down the
+shaft until after we did!" George whispered after the figure had
+passed by.
+
+"That's very likely!" agreed Will.
+
+"Then he may have been poking around our quarters while we have been
+gone."
+
+"That's very likely, too."
+
+Believing the way to be clear now, the boys hastened on toward the
+shaft.  Just as they reached the foot of the ladder they heard a
+sound which sent the blood throbbing to their checks.
+
+"He's making fun of us!" exclaimed George.
+
+"It looks like it," admitted Will.
+
+The sound they heard was the low, complaining snarl of the Wolf.
+
+"The nerve of him!" exclaimed George.
+
+"Perhaps he'll answer now!" Will suggested.
+
+Then followed the "slap, slap, slap!" of the Beaver Patrol.
+
+No answer came from the darkness beyond the shaft.
+
+"He's got his nerve with him!" declared Will.  "When I get hold of
+him, I'll teach him to answer Boy Scout challenges!"
+
+When the boys got back to their quarters they found Tommy and Sandy
+sitting in the darkness with their automatics and their searchlights
+in their hands.  One of them turned on a finger of light as the boys
+entered but immediately shut it off again.
+
+"What's coming off here?" demanded Will.
+
+"Do you know what those fellows did?" asked Tommy.  "They came here
+while we were asleep and stole about half our provisions!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+ONE MORE HUNGRY BOY
+
+
+"We may as well turn on the lights!" Will said.  "If any one comes in
+here to steal Tommy's necktie," he added with a wink at his chum, "we
+want to see what he looks like."
+
+"Why didn't you stay here and watch, then?" demanded Tommy.  "Why did
+you go off and leave the camp all alone?  I heard people moving
+around, and I thought it was you."
+
+Will and George sat down on the edge of their cots and laughed.
+
+"Yes, you thought it was me!" Will said directly.  "You never heard a
+thing!  You'd better look and see if the midnight visitors didn't
+steal your pajamas.  Or they might have taken your pillow."
+
+Tommy threw a shoe at his tormentor and turned on the electric light.
+
+"Now that I'm awake," he said with a sly grin, "I think that I'll get
+myself something to eat.  Seems to me I'm always hungry."
+
+While the boy rattled among canned goods and candled eggs to see if
+they were fit for a four-minute boil, Sandy turned to George.
+
+"What did you find in the mine?" he asked.
+
+"We found that bum detective nosing around.  We've got his number now,
+all right," the boy went on, "and there's something in the mine that
+he wants to find and he doesn't know where to look for it.  He isn't
+looking for Jimmie and Dick any more than we're looking for a pot of
+gold at the end of a rainbow. I don't believe he was ever sent here to
+make a search for the missing boys!"
+
+"What was he doing when you saw him?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Poking around in worked-out chambers with a pick!"
+
+"Did he see you?"
+
+"You bet he didn't!  Do you think we're going to walk six miles in
+from the country in order to dodge the detective, and then let him run
+across us in the mine?"
+
+"Yes, but what's he looking for?" insisted Sandy.
+
+"That, me son," George replied with a wink, "is locked in the bosom of
+the future!  We may be able to find out what he's doing here when we
+find out who struck Billy Patterson."
+
+"Don't get gay now!" grinned Sandy.
+
+"Well, if you insist upon it," George continued with a smile, "Ventner
+was digging in refuse heaps for something which he didn't find!"
+
+"Did you meet the boys who stole our provisions?" was the next
+question.  "I wish you'd got hold of them!"
+
+"We are certain that one of them passed us while we were returning,"
+George answered.
+
+"The nerve of him!" shouted Sandy.
+
+"The idea of his coming here and swiping our provisions!" Tommy cut
+in.  "If I ever get hold of that gink, I'll beat his head off!"
+
+"You going back after than bum detective tonight?" asked George.
+
+"Not me!" answered Sandy.  "Me for ham and eggs."
+
+"What's the matter with passing the ham and eggs around?"
+
+Every one of the four boys sprang forward as the words came from
+somewhere just outside the door.
+
+"That's one of those thieving kids!" declared Tommy.
+
+"You've had your share!" shouted Sandy.
+
+"It has now been nine day's since I've tasted food!" came the answer
+from the other side of the door, and the boys thought they caught a
+chuckle between the words.
+
+"All right!" replied Tommy.  "You go and sit in the deserted mine nine
+days more, and then we'll consider whether you have any right to be
+hungry.  Go on away tonight, anyhow!"
+
+"Not so you could notice it," came the insistent tones from beyond the
+door.  "I'm going to stay right here until I get something to eat!"
+
+"Eat the stuff you stole!" advised Sandy.
+
+"You're in wrong!" came from the other side of the door.  "I haven't
+had a thing to eat in forty or fifty days.  Come on, now," he added,
+"be good fellows and open up.  I'm so hungry I could eat a brass
+cylinder."
+
+"Aw, let him in!" advised Tommy.  "He'll stand there chinning all
+night if we don't!  We've got enough to eat for the present anyway."
+
+Will unfastened the door and a tall slender young fellow of perhaps
+seventeen stopped inside the room and stood blinking a moment under
+the strong, electric light.  His face was streaked with coal dust and
+his clothing was ragged and dirty.  Still the boy looked like anything
+but a tramp.  Tommy eyed him suspiciously for a moment.
+
+"Where'd you come from?" he asked.
+
+"Off the rods!" was the reply.
+
+"And I suppose," Sandy broke in, "that you were just taking a stroll
+by starlight and just happened to walk into this mine."
+
+"Sure," answered the other with a provoking grin.
+
+"Well, if anybody should ask you," Tommy continued, "you're the boy
+that had a mix-up with the tramp tonight, and ran away while we were
+trying to invite you to supper.  What do you know about that?"
+
+"Invite me to supper now and see if I'll run away!"
+
+"If you boys will cut out this foolish conversation for a minute,"
+Will suggested, "I'll try to find out what this boy wants.  Do you
+mean to say," he added turning to Tommy, "that you bumped into this
+kid while returning to the mine from the tracks?"
+
+"Didn't I tell you about that?" asked Tommy.  "I thought I did.  We
+found him in a mix-up with a tramp, and that's all there is to it!"
+
+"And I told you at the time," the stranger interrupted, "that the
+tramp tried to rob me!  That was all right, too.  He did try to rob
+me, but I didn't have a blessed cent in my possession, so he didn't
+get anything!  The tramp who got a hold of me night before last
+stripped me clean!  And that, you see, is why I haven't got any money
+to buy provisions with.  And also that's the reason why I'm hungry."
+
+The four boys gathered around the stranger and began a systematic
+course of questions which at first brought forth only unsatisfactory
+answers.
+
+"And also," the boy went on, taking up the speech he had begun some
+minutes before, "that's why two boys are hungry just about this time.
+I got rolled for my wad plenty."
+
+"That's South Clark street!" laughed Tommy.
+
+"That's Bowery!" corrected the other.
+
+"What'd you say about other boys being hungry?" asked Sandy.
+
+"I said that's why two other boys are hungry."
+
+"They ain't hungry any more," declared Tommy with a wink.
+
+"That listens good!" the stranger said.
+
+"Because," continued Tommy, "they came in here about an hour ago and
+stole everything they could get their hands on."
+
+"Brave boys!" laughed the other.
+
+"You wasn't hiding behind the door when they gave out nerve, either!"
+declared Tommy.  "Here, these boys come here and steal our grub and you
+seem to think they did a noble thing!  What's your name anyhow?"
+
+"Buck!" was the reply.  "Elmer Cyrus Buck, 409 Lexington Avenue,
+N.Y.C.  Member of the Wolf Patrol, Boy Scouts of America, and just
+about ready to scrap for something to eat!"
+
+"Why didn't you say so before?" Tommy exclaimed, setting a great slice
+of ham and several freshly boiled eggs, together with bread and butter
+and canned tomatoes before the young man.
+
+"How long since you've seen Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson?" asked
+Will.  "You must have failed to connect with them tonight!"
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because if you had bumped into them, they would fed you out of the
+provisions they stole from us!"
+
+"I haven't been looking for them tonight!" Elmer replied.  "I tried
+to follow you to the mine," he added turning to Tommy and Sandy, "when
+you left me at the car.  But, somehow, I lost track of you in the
+darkness, and when you finally got into the mine, I had to wait for
+things to quiet down before I could force an entrance.  I don't think
+I could have got in at all if some one hadn't been ahead of me with a
+jimmy, or an axe, or something of that kind."
+
+"That must have been Ventner," suggested Will.
+
+"Mother of Moses!" cried Elmer.  "Has that fellow got into the mine
+again?  Does he know you're here?"
+
+"He knew that we were here," was the answer, "but he thinks we've gone
+away!  He's down in the mine now, hunting for a pot of diamonds in the
+refuse cast aside by the miners."
+
+"Well, you've got him into the mine, at last," Will suggested.  "What
+is the next move you are thinking of making?"
+
+"After I finish my modest supper," Elmer answered with a nod at the
+great stack of food which Tommy had piled on his plate, "I'm going to
+give you boys the surprise of your lives!"
+
+"You're pretty well done now," laughed Will.
+
+"And I'm going to begin," Elmer resumed, "by fishing two members of
+the Wolf Patrol out of the mine and bringing them up here to apologize
+for stealing your grub!"
+
+"If you'll do that," replied Will, "we'll forgive you!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+MINE RATS READY FOR WAR
+
+
+"Wait till I destroy this hen fruit," Elmer said, "and I'll go down
+and bring those two foolish youngsters up with me.  It's time we had
+an understanding with you boys.  You're here looking for something,
+and we're here looking for something.  Perhaps we would meet with
+better success if we talked over our plans."
+
+"What are you looking for?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"Keep it dark," grinned Elmer.  "I'm not going to tell you a thing
+until I bring Jimmie and Dick up here so they can get next to the
+whole story!  I guess you boys can work together without scrapping,
+can't you?"
+
+"When we find the boys," laughed Will, "our job will come to an end!"
+
+"You just wait till I go and bring up Jimmie and Dick, and I'll tell
+you all about it! I won't be gone more than a minute."
+
+"So that's what you came down here after, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, we came here to dig two boys out of a mine."
+
+"I don't believe it!" replied Elmer.
+
+"We came here from Chicago for that very purpose," went on Will.
+
+"Who sent you here?" asked Elmer.
+
+"Lawyer Horton."
+
+"Then Lawyer Horton didn't tell you the 'whole story,'" laughed Elmer.
+"He held out on you boys just to see if you wouldn't get the story at
+the mine.  Of course he didn't know where we were at the time he sent
+you down here, but he never sent you for the express purpose of
+finding us!"
+
+"Then why did he send us?" asked Tommy.
+
+"You just wait till I go and bring up Jimmie and Dick, and I'll tell
+you all about it!  I won't be gone more than a minute."
+
+"But hold on," cried Sandy. "You mustn't go chasing down into the mine
+now.  That bum detective is there, and we don't want him to know that
+we're anywhere within a hundred miles of this place."
+
+"He doesn't know that we're here, either," commented Elmer.  "His
+notion is that he drove us all into the next state when he caused the
+mine to be flooded.  He thinks he has the whole mine to himself, now."
+
+"So he caused the mine to be flooded, did he?"
+
+"Sure he did," was the curt reply.  "The boys saw him digging away at
+the wall which protects this dry mine from the wet one next door."
+
+"So you saw him doing it, did you?"
+
+"I didn't, because I haven't been in the mine before any length of
+time, but Jimmie and Dick saw him.
+
+"We've been told that he made the trouble," Will agreed, "but we
+weren't so very sure of it, after all.  At least, we didn't have the
+proof.  He ought to get twenty years for that!"
+
+"Well, if you keep asking me questions all night," Elmer declared,
+"I'll never get the boys up here, and you'll never know why you were
+sent here!  You can come along with me if you want to."
+
+"But how about this detective?" insisted Sandy.
+
+"We ought to be able to get the boys up here, without letting him know
+that we are in the mine,"  answered Elmer.  "We needn't travel with a
+fife and drum corps ahead of us, nor even carry any lights down with
+us.  He's probably working in some inside chamber."
+
+"All right," Will answered, "we've had our trip through the mine
+tonight, so we'll let Tommy and Sandy go with you.  Are you sure the
+boys will come if you ask them to?"
+
+"Sure they'll come!" was the reply.
+
+The two boys drew on their rubber boots with which they had provided
+themselves before taking up their quarters in the mine, and which they
+had been too excited to use on a previous occasion, and Will loaned a
+pair to Elmer, then they started down the ladders.
+
+"It would be something of a joke if we should butt into that detective
+now, wouldn't it?" Sandy laughed, as they passed down from the second
+level.
+
+"I shouldn't consider it much of a joke," replied Tommy.  "We took a
+lot of pains to make him think we'd gone out of town!"
+
+As the boys walked softly down the center gangway they heard a fall of
+rock which seemed to come from the passage next north.  This
+passageway was connected by the main one with a cross-heading,
+situated perhaps three hundred feet from the shaft.
+
+"I don't know much about mines," whisper Elmer as the boys stopped and
+listened to the clatter of the rocks as they settled down on the floor
+of the cavern, "but that sounds to me a whole lot like a fall from the
+roof.  I hope the boys are not injured."
+
+The boys walked faster until they came to the cross-passage and then
+turned to the right.  Just as they left the main gangway, they heard
+the sound of running feet and directly the distant creaking the ladder
+rungs.
+
+"Some one's making a hot-foot for the surface!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"That's Ventner!" declared Sandy.
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"Because he wears heavy boots.  We have rubbers, me and Dick, and
+Jimmie and Dick, who are down in the mine, are also wearing rubber
+boots!"
+
+"The farther he gets away from the mine, the better it will suit me,"
+Elmer broke in.  "I wish he'd go away and stay for a hundred years."
+
+"The chances are that he dug away one of the pillars and caused that
+drop from the roof," suggested Sandy.
+
+"I guess that's all right, too," Elmer argued.  "If he's been digging
+around here the way the boys say he has, he's certainly taking chances
+on cutting down more than one column.  He ought to be fired out of the
+mine!"
+
+The boys now came to a chamber across the entrance to which a great
+mass of shale had been thrown when the fall from the roof took place.
+
+At first they listened, fearful that they would hear voices of the
+lads they were in search of beyond the wall, possibly crushed under
+the weight of the of stone.  Then they passed along for a short
+distance and peered into the chamber over the heap of refuse.
+
+What they saw brought excited exclamations to their lips.
+
+Jimmie and Dick stood in the interior of the chamber, hedged in by
+fallen debris.  They were swinging their searchlights frantically from
+side to side, and, while the boys looked, they began the utterance of
+such yells as had never before been heard in that gloomy place.
+
+"What's the trouble?" asked Elmer, showing his light at the narrow
+opening between the roof of the chamber and the pile of refuse.
+
+"Oh, you're there, are you?" asked one of the boys.  "We thought
+perhaps you'd gone back to New York and left us to starve to death."
+
+"Well, you didn't starve, did you?" asked Elmer.
+
+"Wow, wow, wow!" yelled Jimmie.
+
+"Now, what is it?" asked Elmer.
+
+"Rats!" yelled the boy.  "Millions of rats!  They're creeping out by
+the regiment from the cribbing where we were hidden!"
+
+"That idiot of a detective," the other boy went on, "undermined a
+pillar and let about half an acre of roof down into this chamber.
+When the roof fell, it broke the cribbing and the rats began pouring
+out.
+
+"They won't hurt you!" declared Tommy.  "Only you mustn't go to
+picking a quarrel with them.  They're fighters when they get their
+tempers up.  Just let them alone and they'll let you alone!"
+
+"Who's that talking?" demanded Jimmie.
+
+"That's the relief expedition!" laughed Elmer.
+
+"You ought to be fired out of the Wolf Patrol for not answering Boy
+Scout signals!" Tommy broke in.  "We called to you more than a dozen
+times, and you never answered once!"
+
+"Well, we had to wait until Elmer reported kind of fellows you were,
+didn't we?" asked Dick.  "We couldn't go and make friends with you
+with knowing what you were here for, so we kept out of your way until
+Elmer could find a way to learn more about you."
+
+"And instead of finding a way," Jimmie took up the argument, "he goes
+off and gets lost in a thicket about six feet square and never shows
+up with any grub for twenty-four hours!  So we had to go and steal
+grub of the boys!"
+
+"Yes, and we're going to have you pinched when you get out!" laughed
+Tommy.  "You'll get ninety days for that."
+
+"Where'd that bum detective go?" asked Jimmie.  "When the roof fell,
+we heard him go clattering down the gangway running as though he had
+only about thirty seconds in which to get to New York."
+
+"He's a long distance from the mine by this time," Elmer suggested.
+
+"Well," Jimmie said, "I don't like the company of these rats, so if
+you'll kindly dig into the refuse on your side, we'll work from this
+side and we'll soon be out.  These rats look hostile."
+
+"You let 'em alone!" advised Tommy.
+
+"Yes, I'll let 'em alone -- not!" shouted Jimmie.
+
+"You wait until I get an armful of rocks and I'll beat some of their
+heads off!"
+
+"For the love of Mike, don't do anything of the kind!" yelled Tommy.
+"They'll climb onto you nine feet thick if you injure one of them!"
+
+But it was too late!  Jimmie acquired an armful of large sized pieces
+of slate and began tossing them into the huddle of rats in the corner.
+
+For an instant the rats squealed viciously as they wore struck by the
+sharp edges of the slate, then they seemed to confer together for a
+moment or two, then they spread out like a fan and began moving toward
+the two boys.
+
+"Now you've done it!" cried Tommy.  "If you don't get out of. There in
+about a second, the rats'll eat your legs off!"
+
+Without waiting for the boys to assume the offensive, the rats began
+screaming and springing at their feet.
+
+The three boys on the outside of the barrier, understanding the peril
+their friends were in, crawled up to the top of the wall of refuse
+which shut the boys into the chamber and turned their lights inside.
+
+It seemed to them then that the rats were two or, three deep on the
+floor.  There appeared to be hundreds--thousands of them.  They
+circled around the boys, becoming bolder every moment.  They nipped at
+the rubber boots and left the marks of their teeth on the tough
+uppers.
+
+"Now, boys," Tommy yelled, as they drew their automatics and leveled
+them over the wall, "shoot to kill!  This is no Sunday School picnic!
+And while we're shooting, boys, you back up to this wall, and see if
+you can't work your way to the top.  If you can get up here, we can
+manage to displace enough slate to let you through."
+
+The boys fired volley after volley, but the rats came on viciously.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+A STICK OF DYNAMITE
+
+
+By this time Jimmie and Dick had their automatics out and were firing
+into the horde of rats.  They killed the rodents by the score, yet for
+every one slaughtered a dozen seemed to appear.
+
+Presently the chamber became so full of powder smoke, the air so
+stifling, that the lads were obliged to cease firing.
+
+"Work your way up this wall," Tommy cried out to the lads as he heard
+them panting below.  "Work your way up so we can catch hold of you,
+and you'll soon be out of that mess!"
+
+"There's a dozen rats hanging to my boot!"  cried Dick.
+
+"And mine, too!" declared Jimmie.
+
+The three boys on the outside continued to hurt refuse from the top of
+the wall into the chamber.  This in a measure kept the rats back, and
+before many minutes Jimmie and Dick were drawn to the top of the
+barrier.
+
+Their rubber boots were cut in scores of places by the sharp teeth of
+the rats, and even their clothing as high up as their shoulders showed
+ragged tears.  A dozen or more rats hung to the boys' boots until the
+top was reached, then they dropped back screaming with baffled rage.
+
+"Talk about your wild Indians!" exclaimed Tommy.  "I never saw
+anything as vicious as that was!  I told you boys not to open up an
+argument with those fellows!  Mine rats are noted for their courage
+when attacked."
+
+"How many bites did you get?" asked Elmer anxiously.
+
+"I got half a dozen nips!" answered Jimmie.
+
+"And so did I," Dick cut in.
+
+"Well, you boys ought to get back to the room right away," Tommy
+suggested, "and have peroxide applied to the wounds.  I've known of
+people dying of blood poison occasioned by rat bites."
+
+"Have you got it in camp with you?" asked Elmer.
+
+"We're the original field hospital!" laughed Tommy.  "We never leave
+Chicago without taking with us everything needed in the first aid to
+the wounded line.  We'd be nice Boy Scouts to go poking about the
+country with nothing with which to heal our wounds!"
+
+"Boys," Elmer now said, with a mischievous grin on his face, "I want
+to introduce you to Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson.  I've heard that
+your names are Sandy and Tommy, but that's all I know about it!"
+
+"Green and Gregory!" laughed Tommy.  "My name's Gregory.  Sandy's name
+isn't Sandy at all but Charley.  We call him Sandy because he looks
+like he'd been rolled in sand."
+
+"Well,  we may as well be getting back to headquarters!" declared
+Sandy after these original introductions had been made.  "But hold
+on," he continued turning back to Jimmie and Dick, with a look on his
+face intended to be severe, "aren't you going to bring our provisions
+back?"
+
+"The provisions," laughed Jimmie, "were hidden in the chamber where
+the rats were, and you're welcome to all you can get your hands on
+now!"
+
+"Oh, well," Sandy groaned, "I suppose we'll have to buy more."
+
+"One difficulty about passing in and out of the mine so frequently,"
+Tommy stated, "is that this man Ventner is likely to catch us at it.
+There's no knowing what he'll do next if he finds that we're searching
+the place.  According to Elmer, you know," he continued, "we didn't
+finish our job when we landed on you boys.  He says the real game is
+now about to begin."
+
+"He's right there!" declared Jimmie.
+
+"Strange thing Mr. Horton didn't tell us all above it!" complained
+Tommy.  "Where was the use of his sending us down here and making
+monkeys of us?  He ought to be ashamed of himself!"
+
+"He wanted to see whether you could find out what you were here for!"
+laughed Elmer.  "Perhaps he understood that after you caught us, we'd
+tell you all about it.  He's a pretty foxy guy, that man Horton, from
+all I hear about him.  I'm going to Chicago some day to meet him!"
+
+"Well, what is it we've got to look for now?" demanded Sandy.
+
+"You just wait till we get to headquarters!" replied Jimmie.
+
+"We ought to do that just as quickly as possible," Tommy ventured,
+"because there's no knowing when that bum detective may return.  I'd
+give a whole lot of money right now to know what he is looking for!"
+
+The three strangers regarded each other laughingly, evidently well
+pleased at the puzzled look showing on the faces of their friends.
+
+"Wait till we get to headquarters and get a square meal under belts,"
+Jimmie promised, "and we'll tell you what this bum detective's looking
+for.  It won't take long to do it, either."
+
+"You know, then, do you?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Of course, we know!"
+
+"Then why don't you tell?"
+
+"Couldn't think of telling on an empty stomach!" laughed Jimmie
+provokingly.
+
+As the boys walked along the passage, only a short distance from the
+old tool house, they heard a rattling and bumping on the shaft ladders
+and instantly extinguished their lights.
+
+Presently they heard footsteps on the hard floor of the gangway, and
+then a light such as those being used by the boys flashed out.
+
+"Now we're in for it!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"For the love of Mike, don't let him see us!" whispered Jimmie.
+
+"It'll spoil everything if he does," Dick submitted.
+
+The boys crowded close against the wall of the gangway and waited
+impatiently for Ventner to pass along.
+
+He was muttering to himself as he moved down the gangway, and his
+round, protruding belly and his little shapeless shoulders reminded
+the watching lads of the gnomes they had read about, living in
+underground cells and preying at night upon the fairies.
+
+Only for a trifling accident the boys would certainly have been
+discovered.  Just as the detective same to a position ten or fifteen
+feet from where they were standing, when he was in a position to see
+their faces by the rays cast on ahead by the flashlight, he partly
+turned his ankle in a stumble on the rails, and for a moment the rays
+of the light were directed downward.  He hobbled along, raving and
+cursing, for a few steps and then walked briskly on again.
+
+But the ever-watchful eye of the searchlight no longer struck upon the
+wall where the boys stood, and they realized that for the present they
+were safe from discovery.  Ventner moved on down the gangway and soon
+disappeared in a cross cutting which ran to the right.
+
+"That's lucky!" exclaimed Jimmie.
+
+"Why didn't we geezle him?" demanded Tommy.
+
+"Because we want his help!" replied Dick.
+
+"His help?" laughed Sandy.  "Yes, you'll get his help, all right!
+That fellow would get up in the middle of the night to do you a dirty
+trick, and don't you ever forget it!"
+
+"That's the way he's going to help us!" laughed Elmer.  "He'll get up
+in the middle of some dark night to do us a dirty trick, and before he
+knows what he's about, he'll be doing us a great kindness!"
+
+"Suppose I slip back there and see what he's doing?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Can you find your way back to headquarters alone?" asked Sandy.
+
+"If I can't," asserted Tommy, "I won't be sending any wireless
+messages to you!  If you think I'm likely to get lost, Dick can go
+back with me.  He ought to know every corner in the old mine."
+
+"Sure he does!" laughed Jimmie.  "We've been traveling this mine for a
+good many nights now, and we know it like a book."
+
+So Tommy and Dick started back down the passage, the intention being
+to hasten to the spot where Ventner disappeared from the gangway, and
+then return to their companions immediately.
+
+"We can't stay very long, you know," Tommy explained, "because
+you've got to have that peroxide dope put on your bites.  It doesn't
+pay to fool with wounds of that description!"
+
+"We'll be back to the old tool room as soon as they are!" answered
+Dick.  "It will take only a minute to run down there and back!"
+
+When the boys reached the cross-cutting into which Ventner had
+disappeared, they saw his light some distance away.  It seemed to be
+in one of the chambers connected with the cross-cutting.
+
+As they looked, the detective stepped forward into the circle of
+illumination and began working with a pick.
+
+"Is he always doing that when you see him?", asked Tommy.
+
+"You bet he is!" answered Dick.
+
+"What's he doing it for?"
+
+"You'll have to ask Elmer that."
+
+"But you know, don't you?"
+
+"Of course I know, but I'm not going to tell, cause we all agreed that
+the story should never be told by any member of our party until Elmer
+gets ready to tell it.  So you see you've got to wait!"
+
+"If I had my way about it," gritted Tommy, "I'd go back there and
+geezle that bum detective and wall him up in a chamber until he got
+hungry enough to tell the story himself.  Then we wouldn't have to go
+sneaking around the mine in order to keep out of his way!"
+
+"That would be a foolish move," insisted Dick, "because every stroke
+of the pick Ventner takes he helps us along in the game we're
+playing."
+
+"You're the original little mystery boy, ain't you?" said Tommy
+rather crossly.  "All right, I'll get even."
+
+The detective now moved farther along the cross-cutting and attacked
+a column of mingled rock and coal which helped to support the roof.
+
+"The blithering idiot is going to try that trick again!" exclaimed
+Dick.  "He'll have the whole mine down on our heads if he doesn't stop
+that business.  He's always cutting down pillars."
+
+"Just say the word," declared Tommy, "and I'll go stop him!"
+
+"Let him go his own gait," replied Dick.  "We'll manage to keep out of
+the way of the falls, and he can run his own chances."
+
+Presently they saw the detective take something which resembled a
+stick of dynamite from a pocket and begin the work of setting it into
+the pillar.  The boys moved hastily back.
+
+"Now what do you think of that for a fool?" exclaimed Dick.  "He'll
+have the whole mine down on our heads some day, just as sure as he's a
+foot high!  I hope he'll be broken in two when the fall comes."
+
+The boys stood some distance away watching the detective as he
+awkwardly manipulated the stick of dynamite.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+CAUSED BY A FALL
+
+
+In the meantime Sandy, Elmer and Jimmie reaching the old tool house,
+found Will and George very wide awake and doing the most extraordinary
+stunts of cooking.
+
+"You said that your friends would be hungry," laughed Will, "and so
+we're preparing to feed them up fine.  After that, you know, you've
+got to go on and tell us why we were sent down here without any real
+information as to the work we were to do."
+
+"Where did you leave, Tommy and Dick?" asked George.
+
+"They went back to see what the detective was up to."
+
+"So he's in the mine again, is he?"
+
+"Yes," replied Sandy, "and if I had my way about it, he'd go out so
+quick that he'd think he'd struck a barrel of dynamite."
+
+"If he keeps fooling with dynamite, he's likely to do that anyhow,"
+Elmer cut in.  "The boys say that he uses dynamite in the search of
+the mine he is making.  He doesn't know how to use it, either!"
+
+"Then he's got to be fired out of the mine!" declared Will.  "We can't
+have him around here carrying dynamite in his clothes, and dropping it
+on the ground.  You might as well give a baby a box of matches and a
+hammer to play with.  Some day there'll be an explosion."
+
+"Aw, leave him alone for a few days!" Jimmie advised.  "He's doing us
+a lot of good just now, and we don't want to lose his help."
+
+"His help?" repeated Will.
+
+"He's bully help!" shouted George, with fine sarcasm.
+
+"I guess I'll have to tell you about the mystery of the mine," Elmer
+laughed.  "Tommy ought to be here to get the story with the rest, but
+you can tell him about it later on."
+
+"He ought to be here any minute now," Jimmie asserted.
+
+"Oh, he'll be here all right!" George argued.  "Go on with the story.
+It's been hours since you came in here with the suggestion that there
+was a story, and you haven't told it yet!"
+
+"Yes," Will interrupted, "get busy and tell us what Mr. Horton
+neglected to say when he sent us down here; and while you are about
+it," the boy went on, "you may as well tell us whether you really
+became lost in the mine, or whether you were sent here to do the very
+things you did do."
+
+"Also," George broke in, "you may as well tell us what the detective
+is doing here, and how he is helping you in trying to blow up the
+mine."
+
+"The boys were never lost in the mine a minute!" replied Elmer, with a
+grin, "and Mr. Horton knew it.  Mr. Horton received his instructions
+from Attorney Burlingame of New York, and I am positive that
+Burlingame gave his brother lawyer the whole story."
+
+"Foxy game, eh?" laughed Will.
+
+"I guess they wanted you to find out if we boys were of any account,
+and whether we were playing fair!" laughed Jimmie.
+
+"Well, anyway, they expected you to find us and learn the story I'm
+now going to tell," Elmer continued.
+
+"Jerusalem!" exclaimed Will.  "Why don't you get at it.  That story
+has been jumping from tongue to tongue clothed in mystery for hours
+and we haven't been favored with it yet!"
+
+"The story opens," Elmer began, "on a cold and stormy night in October
+in the year 1913.  As the wind blew great gusts of rain down upon such
+pedestrians as happened to be out of doors--"
+
+"Aw, cut it out!" exclaimed Will.  "Why don't you go on and tell the
+story?  We don't want any more of that Henry James business!  You know
+he always has a solitary horseman proceeding slowly on foot."
+
+"Well, it was a dark night, and a stormy one!" declared Elmer.  "If it
+had been clear and bright, Stephen Carson, the Wall street banker,
+wouldn't have received a dent in his cupola.  In stepping down from
+his automobile his foot slipped on the wet pavement, and he fell,
+striking on the back of his head.
+
+"What's that got to do with this mine mystery?" demanded George.
+
+"It has a great deal to do with this mine mystery," Elmer answered.
+"Stephen Carson arose from the ground, rubbed the back of his head
+with his gloved hand, and continued on his way to a meeting of a board
+of directors.  He appeared to be perfectly sane and responsible for
+his acts at the meeting of the board, and when he left in his machine
+there were no indications that he had suffered more than a slight
+bruise from his fall.  He was not seen at home again for two weeks."
+
+"Now you begin to get interesting!" declared Will.
+
+"Where did he go?" asked Sandy.
+
+"That is what his friends don't know," replied Elmer.
+
+"But he must have been seen somewhere!" insisted Sandy.
+
+"He was," answered Elmer.  "He was seen in the vicinity of this mine."
+
+"Wow, wow, wow!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"What was he doing here?" asked Will.
+
+"Wandering about the premises."
+
+"Now I can tell you the rest," Will said with a chuckle.
+
+"Go on, then," advised Elmer.
+
+"From the meeting of the board of directors that night," Will went on
+whimsically, "this man Stephen Carson wept directly to a safety
+deposit vault where three or four hundred thousand dollars in the way
+of cash and jewelry were hidden.  He took the whole bundle and
+disappeared.  Is that anywhere near right, Elmer?"
+
+"Go on!" Elmer replied.
+
+"Then in two weeks time he comes back and says that he don't know
+where he put the jewelry, but that he thinks he hid it in this mine.
+And, as they can't find any place where he hocked the jewelry, or put
+it up to carry out some gigantic Wall street plan, they are forced to
+believe that he really did mislay the jewelry while temporarily out of
+his head.  Is that anywhere near right?"
+
+"If you'll amend your report so as to show that he went to the Night
+and Day bank and drew out something over two hundred thousand dollars
+which he had on deposit there, and disappeared with the entire sum,
+you'll come nearer to the truth."
+
+Will gave a long whistle of amazement.
+
+"Two hundred thousand dollars in real money!" exclaimed George.
+
+"Yes, he took two hundred thousand dollars in real money away with him
+that night," Elmer went on, "and when he returned to his home again,
+he was penniless and in rags."
+
+"Was he in his right mind?" asked Will.
+
+"He seemed to be."
+
+"Has he now recovered from the injury he received that night?"
+
+"So the doctors say."
+
+"Then why doesn't he tell what he did with the money?"
+
+"That part of his life is blank.  He was seen in the vicinity of this
+mine, yet denies it.  He was seen loitering in the woods not far away,
+but insists that he never visited this mine except to attend meetings
+of the board of directors."
+
+"Now I've got you!" laughed Will.  "His friends think he hid the money
+in this mine and we've been sent here to find it!"
+
+"That's the idea," agreed Elmer.
+
+"And this bum detective is here for the same purpose!"
+
+"Yes, though where he received his information is more than I know.
+Upon his return to his home, Mr. Carson immediately made good the two
+hundred thousand dollars taken from the Night and Day bank and
+employed detectives to look up the missing coin.
+
+"Is Ventner one of them?" asked Will.
+
+"I don't think so," replied Elmer.  "We were sent here to look through
+the mine, with the understanding that you were to come on from Chicago
+in a few days.  Mr. Horton recommended you to Mr. Burlingame and so
+you were employed."
+
+"Then this detective has no right here at all?"
+
+"None whatever, so far as I can make out."
+
+"Then why not fire him?"
+
+"Because he may accidentally run across the money some day."
+
+"If he does, he'll get away with it!" declared George.
+
+"No, he won't," answered Elmer, "He'll be watched every minute from
+now on.  You may be sure of that!"
+
+"But you didn't seem to know what he was doing tonight," laughed Will.
+
+"But I knew enough to come to the right place for the information I
+desired," replied Elmer.
+
+"Strange thing Tommy and Dick don't come!" Sandy exclaimed, stepping
+to the door of the old tool house and listening intently.  "They
+should I have been here a long time ago!"
+
+"Perhaps they've butted into Ventner," suggested Jimmie.
+
+"They wouldn't do that," Elmer replied.  "Every blow he strikes with
+his pick saves us the trouble of making one."
+
+"You don't think he had any directions from anyone, do you?" asked
+Will.  "You don't think he knows, where to look for the money any more
+than you do?"
+
+"No, I think he just heard of the loss of the money and came down here
+on his own account."
+
+"Well, if he's using dynamite in the mine," Will continued, "he ought
+to be turned out of it.  If Mr. Carson really hid two hundred thousand
+dollars in currency in here, it's in some little pocket easy to find
+if we get into the right chamber.  The use of dynamite might bury it
+twenty feet deep under a load of shale that would never be removed!"
+
+"That's a fact!" cried Elmer.
+
+The boys now stepped to the door and listened again, attracted by the
+sound of running feet.
+
+"There's something doing!" exclaimed Sandy.  "When Tommy comes home on
+a run, there's always something going on."
+
+Directly the boys came panting up, stopping in the doorway to look
+behind them.  They were both well winded.
+
+"That bum detective back there," Tommy exclaimed as soon as he could
+catch his breath, "is putting in dynamite enough to blow up the whole
+mine.  He's attaching a long fuse, so he can get out before the
+explosion comes. We tried to get down far enough to choke off the
+fuse, but couldn't do it.  In just about another minute, you'll hear
+something like a Fourth of July celebration!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE SIGNS IN STONES
+
+
+"We thought he'd send the shot off before we got up the ladders!"
+exclaimed Dick. "We're expecting to hear the roar of it every minute
+now!"
+
+"Perhaps something went wrong," suggested Will.
+
+"What part of the mine is he in?" asked Jimmie.
+
+Tommy explained the location of the cross cutting and Jimmie gave a
+whistle of dismay.  In a moment he asked:
+
+"Was he cutting into one of the pillars?"
+
+"Yes," was the answer, "he was getting ready to blow it down with
+dynamite.  It's a wonder we don't hear the explosion!"
+
+"If the spot where he's working is the place I think it is," Jimmie
+continued, "the gink stands a pretty good chance of finding something.
+We've been searching in that chamber, and just before you boys showed
+up tonight we thought we were on the right track.  Whether the money
+is there or not, it is a sure thing that the walls of the chamber have
+been tampered with.  We think, though, that the money is there!"
+
+"Then we mustn't let Ventner get it!" exclaimed Will.
+
+"It won't do him any good to get it after that stick of dynamite
+explodes!"  exclaimed Tommy.  "It'll blow him to Kingdom Come."
+
+"Well, why don't we go down and see about it?" asked Will
+
+"Not for me!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"He may blow his own head off if he wants to," Dick put in, "but he
+can't blow off mine, not with my consent.  I've got only one head!"
+
+"I don't believe there's going to be any explosion at all!" exclaimed
+Elmer.  "He wouldn't be apt to lay a fuse that would burn fifteen or
+twenty minutes, and you've certainly been that length of time coming
+up here, to say nothing of the time we've been talking!"
+
+"All right!" Tommy exclaimed.  "Perhaps he was loading up that pillar
+with dynamite just for the fun of it!"
+
+"It would be a nice thing to have him blow that money out of the
+pillar and get away with it, wouldn't it?" scoffed Will.
+
+"Come on, then," shouted Tommy, "I can take you to the firing line in
+about a minute.  If you want to see an earthquake in a coal mine, just
+come along with me!  You'll see it, all right!"
+
+The boys left the old tool house without spending any more time in
+conversation, and hastened down the ladders to the lower level.  On
+the way down the last gangway they heard some one moving about in the
+darkness, and then came a cry of warning.
+
+"Stand clear!  Stand clear!"
+
+"That's Ventner's voice!" exclaimed Will.
+
+"There's a blast going off in a minute!" the voice came again.
+
+"Now we've gone and done it!" exclaimed Will.  "After all the trouble
+we've taken to make that fellow think we've left the country, we've
+let him bump right into us.  I wonder if he really has fired the
+fuse?"
+
+"Stand clear!  Stand clear!" shouted the voice.  Almost before the
+words had died out, the explosion came, tearing more than one pillar
+out of position and dropping a great mass of slate down on the floor of
+the cross-cutting.
+
+For a moment the gases which filled the chambers were overpowering.
+The only wonder was that they were not ignited.  The electric lights
+carried by the boys shone dimly through the smoke of the confined
+place.
+
+"There goes Ventner," whispered Will, pointing to a figure moving
+swiftly through the half-light of the place.
+
+"He's going to see what the shot brought down!" suggested Tommy.
+
+The Boys rushed forward in a little group.  When they gathered at the
+scene of the explosion, the detective was not there.
+
+"If he got hold of the cash, he knew what to do with it all right!"
+exclaimed Tommy.  "He got away with it before we got a chance to see
+what he had.  Now we've got to catch him!"
+
+"May as well look for a needle in a load of hay!" grumbled Sandy.
+
+"Look here," Jimmie exclaimed.  "There's away to keep him shut up in
+the mine if we do the right thing.  This cross-cutting runs out to a
+gangway on the north, and that, in turn, leads, of course, to the
+shaft.  Now, one of you boys duck out to the shaft and see that he
+doesn't get up.  You'll have to go some on the way there, because a
+man with two hundred thousand dollars in his pocket will put up some
+running match!"
+
+"I'm off!" shouted Tommy.  "I know I can get to the shaft before he
+can!  He's too fat-bellied to run, anyway!"
+
+Tommy started away at a swift pace, and the other boys closed in on
+the gangway, Will alone stopping at the scene of the explosion.
+
+"This gangway," Dick explained, "runs back into the mine for some
+distance, but there are no cross passages.  I guess the coal wasn't
+very good here.  At least, they never spread out the drive."
+
+"Then we've got him bottled up unless he got out of the shaft!"
+declared Sandy.  "We'll soon know whether he got out or not!"
+
+"I don't believe he would try to get out," suggested Elmer.  "The
+chances are that he'd make for the back of the mine, thinking to hide
+away with the plunder, provided he had any plunder to hide away with."
+
+"I'm afraid he found the hidden money," Will said, taking a scorched
+ten-dollar bill from a pocket.  "I found this back there, where the
+pillar fell.  I guess he found the cash all right!"
+
+"And that's a nice thing, too!" exclaimed Sandy.  "You boys kept
+saying that Ventner was helping you find the coin.  You were right
+about that, for he did find the coin.  And now the trick is to get it
+away from him!"
+
+"I'd like to know whether Ventner got up the shaft or not,"' suggested
+George, "and I believe I'll take a run up there and see."
+
+"That's a good idea!" advised Will.  "If he didn't get up the shaft
+he's surely imprisoned in the gangway.  He may be between this
+cross-cutting and the shaft, or he may have gone further in!"
+
+"It'll take a long time to find out about that," suggested Jimmie.
+
+Directly Tommy and George were heard returning from the shaft.  They
+came through the gangway flashing their lights in every direction.
+
+"He never went up the shaft!" Tommy exclaimed as they came near.
+"We've got him canned in the mine all right.  If he's got the money,
+we'll take it away from him!  He wouldn't know what to do with it
+anyway!"
+
+"First," suggested Will, "we'd better make sure that the fellow got
+the money.  The bank note I found may have never been in the
+possession of Mr. Carson.  And even if it was, it may be the only one
+to be blown out of its hiding place by the explosion.  It strikes me
+that we'd better give the place a thorough search before we waste much
+time looking for Ventner.  If, as Tommy says, he never left the mine
+by way of the shaft, we've got him blocked in, all right!"
+
+The boys now began a careful examination of the cross-cutting where
+the explosion had taken place.  As has been stated, more than one
+pillar had been blown out.  There was a great heap of debris on floor,
+and this the boys attacked with a vim.
+
+Tommy and George were now standing guard at mouth of the cross-cutting
+so that no one could pass down the gangway toward the shaft.
+
+"Suppose that fellow did get the money?" asked Sandy, as the boys
+cleared away the heaps of slate, "what then?"
+
+"Then we'll have to take it away from him."
+
+"We'll catch him first."
+
+"We've got him blocked in, haven't we?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Oh, we know that he can't get out," Dick cut in, "but we know, too,
+that there are a lot of shallow benches along that gangway.  We can't
+walk in and pick him out in a minute.  Besides," the boy continued,
+"when we find him, we may find his pockets empty."
+
+"That's just what we will do!" Elmer agreed.  "He'll hide the money in
+another place, and swear that he never found it!"
+
+"I wish we'd kicked him out of the mine!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+The boys continued the search until daylight, and then, leaving Tommy
+and George still on guard, they went up to the old tool house for
+breakfast.  The lads were by no means elated over what had taken
+place.  They believed that Ventner had succeeded in finding the money,
+and were certain that, even if located in the mine, he would deny any
+knowledge of it.
+
+"I guess we got you boys into a mess by insisting on having the
+detective roaming around," admitted Elmer, as the boys were eating a
+hastily prepared breakfast.  "I guess we should have listened to you
+in regard to that.  There is no knowing how much trouble we have
+made!"
+
+"He may help us find the money after all!" laughed Will.
+
+"Yes," cut in Sandy, "it may be easier to get it away from him than to
+find the place where it was hidden."
+
+"Oh, yes, if we could lay our hands on him and order him to give up
+two hundred thousand dollars, and he, would say: 'Yes, I've been
+waiting to find the owner,' that would be all right, too!  But the
+thing isn't likely to turn out in that way!  He'll hide the money,
+and swear he never found it!  Then, when everything quiets down,
+he'll sneak back and get it!"
+
+This from Jimmie, who seemed to a take a rather gloomy view of the
+situation.  The boys remained at the old tool house only a short time.
+Their minds were fixed so intently on the work in hand that they
+hardly knew whether they had had any breakfast at all.
+
+As they passed down the ladders to the lower level, they heard
+something which resembled a shot, and almost tumbled over each other
+going down into the gangway.  Will and Elmer were first to reach the
+cross-heading where the explosion of dynamite had taken place.
+
+They called to Tommy and George, but received no answer.  They walked
+for some distance down the gangway without hearing any sound
+indicating the presence of their companions, or of any one else.
+
+"Now that's a funny thing!" exclaimed Will.  "I don't see why those
+boys should go rambling about the mine at a time like this just for
+the fun of the thing!"
+
+"They never did!" replied Elmer.  "You remember the shot we heard?"
+
+"It might not have been a shot!" suggested Will.
+
+As the boy spoke he bent over and pointed to stones lying on the floor
+of the gangway.
+
+"There!" he said.  "The boys have left a record.  They not only point
+out the trail, but warn us that there is danger in following it!"
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+TWO HOLD-UP MEN
+
+
+"That's Boy Scout talk all right!" exclaimed Elmer.
+
+"Yes, the three stones, piled one on top of the other, mean that there
+is danger in following the trail.  I don't understand exactly what
+kind of danger can be threatening us, and so the only thing we cart do
+is to go on and find out," Will said with a glance backward.
+
+The other boys now came up and a short consultation was held.  It was
+decided to leave Sandy and Dick at the point where the explosion had
+taken place, while Will, Elmer and Jimmie followed on down the
+gangway.
+
+"Now whatever you do," warned Will as the two boys were left behind,
+"don't leave this gangway for a minute.  If Ventner isn't out of the
+mine now we don't want him to get out.  He may money or he may not.
+That is one of the things no fellow can find out at this time, but
+whether he has or not, we want him to give an account of himself
+before he leaves the Labyrinth.  He's got several important questions
+to answer."
+
+The boys promised to watch the passage faithfully, and the others
+passed on down the gangway, flashing their lights in every direction
+and making no pretense of moving quietly.
+
+"Look here," Jimmie said after they had proceeded some distance into
+the mine and discovered nothing of importance, "I have in my
+possession a great idea!  Want to hear about it?"
+
+"Sure!" laughed Will.
+
+"We're making too much noise."
+
+"Making too much noise in order to attract the attention of a couple
+of lost youngsters?" asked Elmer.
+
+"'They're not lost!" insisted Jimmie.  "They've been lured away or
+dragged away!  We don't know how many men were in the mine with
+Ventner?"
+
+"Well, produce your idea!" Elmer exclaimed.
+
+"Well, my notion is that I ought to go on ahead of you boys, walking
+as quietly as possible and without a light.  If there are people
+waiting to snare us, they'll naturally think we've bunched our forces
+and are all coming along together.  Then, you see," he continued,
+"I'll be right in among them before they suspect that we have a
+skirmish line out."
+
+"That's an all right notion, kid!" answered Will.
+
+"Then I'll be on my way," Jimmie replied. "And if I need help at any
+time, I'll give the call of the pack!"
+
+"But you mustn't do that unless you have to," Wilt cautioned,
+"because, the minute the cry is heard, everybody within eighty rods
+would know what's going on.  Have you matches with you?"
+
+The boy felt in the pockets of his coat and nodded.
+
+"Well, then," he said, "if you want to signal, wet your hands and rub
+the phosphorus off the matches.  Turn your hands, palms in our
+direction, so no one can see from the other side and wig-wag."
+
+"That will be fine!" exclaimed Jimmie.  "I've got this wig-wag system
+down pat.  I guess this Boy Scout training is pretty poor, ain't it,
+eh?  The darker it is, the better we an talk!"
+
+Jimmie darted away, while Will and Elmer remained stationary for a
+short time in order to give him an opportunity to get out of the range
+of their lights.  Directly they heard him whispering back and
+listened.
+
+"There's another stone cairn here!" he said.  "I guess I knocked it
+over, for I can't tell exactly what it is.  You can learn that when
+you come up with your searchlights!  I think there are three stones."
+
+"All right!" Will whispered back.
+
+When the boys came to the spot from which the voice had been heard
+they found three stones lying side by side on the floor of the
+gangway.  It was plain that they had been placed one on top of the
+other, and so they accepted them as another warning of danger.
+
+"I wish we had some intimation of the kind of trouble we are likely to
+get into," Elmer suggested, as they passed along.  "I don't like this
+idea of boring a hole in the darkness with a little bit of a light and
+anticipating an attack at any minute."
+
+"I don't like it a little bit myself," replied Will.  "A person so
+inclined might shoot us down without ever showing himself," declared
+Elmer.  "In fact, the only protection we have lies in the fact that
+Jimmie is on ahead, and would not be likely to pass any one lying in
+wait for us.  Bright little boy, that!"
+
+"There he is now!" exclaimed Will.  "He's using the phosphorus, all
+right, and I can begin to understand what he's trying to say?  There's
+a 'W', and an 'A', and an 'I', and a 'T'.  That means that he wants us
+to stay where we are.  The system works fine, doesn't it?"
+
+The question now was as to whether the lads should extinguish their
+lights.  That, of itself, they understood would be suspicious in case
+they should be in sight of their enemies.  It would simply proclaim
+their knowledge of the danger they were in, whatever it was.
+
+"I think we'd better keep the lights going until we hear something
+more," said Elmer.  "Jimmie will talk again in a minute."
+
+The boys waited patiently for some moments, and then the wig-wag
+figures came again.  Will read slowly:
+
+"There's a 'V', and an 'E', and an 'N', and a 'T',  and an 'N', and an
+'E', and an 'R'," he said.  "Now the boy's starting it again.  He
+says, 'Ventner is here.'  Now wait a minute, there's more coming!"
+
+"The next words are: 'With two others.'"
+
+"It's only a question of time when that detective will get next to the
+wig-wag game," Elmer declared.  "This gangway smells like a match
+factory already.  I wonder how far Jimmie is away from them."
+
+Directly Jimmie began talking the wig-wag tongue again.  This time he
+said that Tommy and George were not in sight, and had evidently been
+surprised and taken prisoners.  He advised Will and Elmer to come on
+softly with their lights out.
+
+The boys did as requested, but they had advanced only a few paces in
+the darkness when Canfield, accompanied by Sandy and Dick came running
+up, showing both lack of breath and profound excitement.
+
+"Boys," Canfield called. "Boys!"
+
+"Will!" yelled Sandy.
+
+"I guess they're going to bust up the whole combination!" declared
+Will rather sourly.  "I wish I had them by the neck!"
+
+"They may have important news," suggested Elmer.  "Anyway, we'll have
+to turn on our lights and meet them.  If we don't, they'll keep on
+yelling all down the gangway!"
+
+Canfield and the two boys came up as soon an Elmer showed a light, and
+stood for a moment looking cautiously about.
+
+"I don't think you boys ought to go any further into the mine,"
+Canfield exclaimed, breathing heavily from the long chase down the
+passage.  "I have just received word that two of the most desperate
+hold-up men in the country have taken refuge here.  There's no knowing
+how they got over to the mine, but it is a sure thing that they did
+get here, for couple of breaker boys saw them climbing into the
+breaker."
+
+"What time was this?" asked Will.
+
+"Oh, I don't know," replied Canfield.  "The matter was reported to me
+early this morning.  I couldn't find you before, or you should have
+had the news sooner.  It isn't safe for you to go into the mine!"
+
+"Your information," grinned Will, "comes a little bit late, but it's
+all right, just the same.  Ventner is in there, and there are two men
+with.  It's a mystery how they made their way in without being
+discovered, but it seems that they did so."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Canfield.
+
+"We're going on into the mine."
+
+"In the face of my warning?"
+
+"It's just this way," answered Will.  "We left two of the boys on
+guard in this passage, not so very long ago, and they have
+disappeared.  We suspect that Ventner and the two men to whom you
+refer have good reason to know something of their whereabouts."
+
+"They won't injure the boys!" pleaded Canfield.
+
+"We don't mean to give them a chance!" insisted Elmer.  "We're going
+to jerk those boys out so quick it'll make their heads swim!"
+
+"But it's positively dangerous!" urged the caretaker.
+
+"If there wasn't an element of danger in the situation, we wouldn't be
+here!" replied Will,  "I don't see as we need to run away from two
+hold-up men, anyway," the boy went on.  "Here are five boys and one
+full grown man in the gangway.  We ought to give a pretty good account
+of ourselves, in case some one starts anything!"
+
+"Where's the fifth boy?" asked Canfield.  "It seems to me that you're
+getting quite an accumulation of boys in here!"
+
+"Two of the boys are Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson!" answered Will.
+"You know you informed me quite positively not long ago that the I two
+lads were hundreds of miles from this place by that time."
+
+"You might barricade the hold-up men and starve them out," suggested
+Canfield, "that is, if you're sure they're in there!"
+
+"We have just had a wireless from the interior," Elmer answered.
+"There are three men in there, all right!"
+
+"Well, it won't take any longer to starve three out than it would
+one!" declared Canfield.
+
+"Yes," Elmer cut in, "and about the first time the hold-up men got
+good and hungry, they'd be sending out Tommy's ears or one of George's
+fingers just as a warning to us not to meddle with their appetites."
+
+Before long Jimmie began wig-wagging again, but before any words could
+be formed the waiting boys heard a distant scuffle, a short, quick cry
+of alarm, and then the phosphorus-covered palms disappeared from
+sight.
+
+"They've got Jimmie!" Elmer said in a tone of dismay.
+
+"Well, what are we going to do?" demanded Sandy.  "We've got to do
+something right away, and that's no story out of the dream book!"
+
+"I don't suppose it would be of any use to rush them," suggested
+Elmer.
+
+"They'd mow us down like rats!" declared Dick.
+
+"It strikes me," Sandy said, "that we'd ought to get back further and
+keep out of sight until we can decide upon some definite plan of
+action."
+
+"I've got an idea wandering around in the back of my brain," Will
+said.  "If the situation is exactly as I think it is, we may be able
+to get the best of those hold-up men after all."
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+THE MONEY IN SIGHT
+
+
+"Not while they have possession of the boys," Canfield declared
+dolefully.  "They'll murder those boys if we shut off their supplies!"
+
+"Oh, I don't know about that!" suggested Dick.  "We've been mixed up
+in a great many awkward situations but we always managed to save our
+necks.  We'll get the boys out in some way!"
+
+"Look here, Mr. Canfield," Will said, "how well do you know this
+mine?"
+
+"Every inch of it!" was the reply.
+
+"Every inch of every level," asked Will.
+
+"Yes, sir!" replied the caretaker, rather proudly.  "I can go into any
+part of it without a light!"
+
+"Then look here, Dick," Will directed.  "You chase back to the old
+tool house and bring back a long rope.  And when you return, stop at
+the second level.  Some of us will meet you there."
+
+"I hope you don't expect to pull these boys up through fifty or a
+hundred feet of shale?" asked the caretaker.
+
+"I don't know whether my scheme will work or not," Will answered, "but
+it's worth trying!  We have to leave at least two here, well armed and
+take the others with us.  You'll have to act as guide, Mr. Canfield,
+and we'll meet Dick when he comes down to the second level with the
+rope.  As soon as we get the boys out of their trouble, we can leave
+the three outlaws in full possession of the mine.  If we watch the
+shaft at the old tool house, they can never get out without our
+knowing it!"
+
+"I don't understand what you have in mind," faltered Canfield.
+
+Leaving Sandy and Elmer in the gangway from which the wig-wag signals
+had been shown, the others hastened up the ladder to the second level.
+Then Dick ran away to bring the rope, while Will questioned the
+caretaker regarding the fall between the two levels.
+
+"You remember the old shaft, cut through years ago, and doubtless
+deserted when the vein ran out, which at one time connected the two
+levels, don't you?" asked the boy of the caretaker.
+
+"There is such a place," replied the caretaker.
+
+"Can you find it?"
+
+"Of course I can."
+
+"Does the fall open into the system of chambers in the center or to
+the north?  You understand what I mean!  Is it possible to enter any
+of the benches or chambers connecting with the north gangway on the
+lower level by means of this deserted shaft?"
+
+"I am not quite certain about that," replied Canfield, "but my idea is
+that the north benches and chambers can be reached by means of that
+opening.  I am glad you thought of that," he went on.
+
+Dick now returned with the rope, and the three proceeded down the
+second level until they came to a confusion of passages and benches
+which would certainly have bewildered any one not familiar with the
+mine.
+
+"Unless I am very much mistaken," Canfield went on, "this passage, the
+one straight ahead, runs almost directly over Tunnel Six.  If I am
+right in this, the deserted shaft is here."
+
+"And Tunnel Six is the haunted corridor, isn't it?" asked Dick.
+
+"That's where the lights have been seen!" replied the caretaker.
+
+"You never believed in the ghost stories told about Tunnel Six?" asked
+Will.  "I should think you'd begin to see now that the alleged ghosts
+were pretty material things."
+
+"Well, I don't know about the ghosts," replied the caretaker, "but I
+really was getting a little bit nervous when you boys arrived.  You
+know," he continued, "that we all feel a little shivery when we butt
+into anything which we can't understand."
+
+"Well, suppose you follow this passage to the end and see if you
+discover anything like the deserted shaft," suggested Dick.
+
+"You're not going to venture into the lower level again, are you?"
+asked Canfield.  "I don't blame you boys for wanting to rescue your
+companions, but, at the same time, I don't want to see you throw your
+lives away.  Those are desperate men in Tunnel Six!"
+
+"If my idea is worth anything at all," replied Will, "we'll get the
+boys out without ever letting the hold-up men know that we are within
+a mile of them.  You know we had very little difficulty in getting out
+of the chamber where we left the boat."
+
+"Trust you boys for inventing ways of doing things!" exclaimed
+Canfield.
+
+"Of course," Will said hesitatingly after a time, "it may be that this
+deserted shaft doesn't connect with Tunnel Six, but even if it doesn't,
+we'll find some way of getting to our friends from the new position.
+We can only try, anyway!"
+
+"I'm pretty certain that it connects with Tunnel Six," replied the
+caretaker.  "But you mustn't show your light when you approach the old
+shaft," he went on, "because if it does connect with the chamber we
+seek, and the chamber in turn connects with the north passage, the
+robbers will see what we're doing."
+
+"That's a valuable suggestion!" replied Will.
+
+"I'll go on ahead," Canfield continued, "and find the old shaft.  Then
+you can follow on with the rope, and one of you boys can drop down and
+see what can be discovered."
+
+"It's dollars to apples," chuckled Dick, as the boys trailed along
+after the caretaker, "that we, find the three kids trussed up like a
+lot of hens ready for the market in the chamber where you came so near
+getting wet.  I hope we do, at any rate!"
+
+"There's one thing we overlooked," Will said as Canfield whispered to
+them that he had found the deserted shaft, "and that is this: We
+should have directed the boys in the gangway to have attracted the
+attention of the outlaws by a little pistol practice while we are
+communicating with our friends.  They may be all packed away in the
+chamber together."
+
+"Yes, we should have attended to that," replied Dick.  "Perhaps I'd
+better go back now and tell them to get busy with their automatics."
+
+"We may as well investigate the situation here first," the other
+answered.
+
+The boys heard the caretaker creeping about in the darkness, and
+presently a piece of shale or coal was heard rattling down the old
+shaft.
+
+"We'll have to get that blundering caretaker away from there,"
+whispered Will.  "If we don't, he'll notify the hold-up men that we're
+getting ready to do something!  I've heard that about three-fourths of
+the people in the world object to doing anything unless they can take
+a brass band along, and I guess it's true."
+
+"Say," Canfield whispered, calling back to the lads, "when that stone
+dropped down, I heard something that sounded like a paddle slapping
+down on the water.  That room can't be wet yet, can it?"
+
+"The Beaver call!" whispered Will.
+
+"Right you are!" replied Dick. "The boys are there, all right!"
+
+"Now the next thing to do is to find out if those highwaymen are
+watching them," declared Will.
+
+"I'll tell you that in a minute," Dick whispered.
+
+As the boy spoke, he passed one end of the rope to Canfield.
+
+"Hang on to it, whatever takes place!" he whispered, "and I'll drop
+down and see what's going on."
+
+"You must be very careful," warned Canfield.
+
+"That's all right," answered Dick, "but we can't stand here all day
+figuring out precautions.  We've got to know right off whether there's
+anyone in that chamber watching the boys!"
+
+"What a joke it would be to put on a ghost in Tunnel Six!" laughed
+Will in a decidedly cheerful frame of mind now that rescue seemed so
+near.
+
+"Don't try any foolishness!" advised Canfield.  "Let's rescue the boys
+if possible and make our way out of this horrible place."
+
+Will crawled to the edge of the shaft with Dick and whispered as he
+lowered him into the dark opening below:
+
+"Remember, that Ventner may have discovered the money.  If so, we must
+secure it before we leave the place!  It will be just like him, to
+stow the bank notes away in some chamber like the one you are about to
+enter.  When you strike bottom, if there is no one in sight except the
+boys, turn on your searchlight and take a good look over the interior
+of the chamber.
+
+"We were in there not so very long ago, but at that time we weren't
+thinking of making a search there for hidden money.  You'll have to
+use your own judgment about turning on the light, of course.  The
+outlaws may be out in the gangway, some distance from the entrance to
+the chamber, or they may be within six feet of where the boys are held
+as prisoners."
+
+"Tommy ought to be able to tell me the minute I strike the heap of
+shale whether the outlaws are close by or not!" Dick suggested.
+
+"Of course!" answered Will, "if he knows.  If the men are not in
+sight, and he doesn't know where they are, you'll simply have to take
+chances.  If you get caught in there, you'll have to shoot, and shoot
+quick!"
+
+Dick dropped down into the old shaft and directly the anxious watchers
+above heard the rattle of shale as it dropped from the pyramid under
+the opening.  Will, still clinging to the rope, lay on his stomach and
+peered downward, watching with all anxiety for some show of light, or
+some sound which might indicate the situation below.
+
+Directly Will felt a soft, steady pull at the rope, and knew that one
+of the boys was ready to be hoisted to the top.
+
+Dick came up first, chuckling as he landed on the edge of the break in
+the rock, and was immediately followed by Jimmie.
+
+"Where's Tommy and George?" asked Will in a whisper.
+
+"They're down there looking for the money!"
+
+"Looking for the money in the darkness?"
+
+"Sure!" was the reply.  "You see," he went on, "those ginks tied us
+up, good and tight, and then threw the money around promiscuous like!"
+
+"So the money is there?" asked Will.
+
+The news seemed too good to be true!
+
+"It was there when we were first thrown into the chamber," replied
+Jimmie, "but I have an idea that Ventner sneaked in and removed it so
+as to prevent his mates getting any share."
+
+A light flashed out from below, followed immediately by a pistol shot!
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+SANDY IS DISCHARGED
+
+
+Elmer and Sandy, guarding the gangway variously called the North
+section and Tunnel Six, presently heard voices coming from the
+direction of the shaft, and the latter moved back a few paces in order
+to inspect the new-comers.  In a moment he saw three rather pompous
+looking men approaching him, their footsteps being directed by a man
+clothed as a miner.
+
+"Here, boy!" shouted one of the pompous men.  "Can you tell me where
+Canfield, the caretaker of the mine may be found?"
+
+"He's up on the next level," replied Sandy.
+
+"I was told he was down here," growled the speaker, who was very short
+and fat, and very much out of breath.
+
+"He was here a little while ago," answered Sandy.
+
+"What's the meaning of this show of firearms?" demanded the fat main,
+after glancing disdainfully at the automatic in the boy's hand.
+
+"We've got three robbers cooped up in the mine," replied Sandy.
+
+"That's the old, old story!" exclaimed the fat man.  "I don't know
+that I ever knew of a mine that wasn't haunted, either by ghosts or
+robbers!  Mysteries seem to breed in coal mines!"
+
+Sandy walked back to the place where, he had left Elmer, and the three
+men and their guide followed him.  When Elmer caught a view of the fat
+man's face and figure, he gave a sharp pull at Sandy's sleeve.
+
+"That's Stephen Carson!" he said.  "I guess I'd better keep out of
+sight, because I don't care about getting into an argument with him.
+He's the most contrary person I ever saw in my life, and never fails
+to get up an argument about something or other with yours truly."
+
+"You seem to know him pretty well," whispered Sandy.
+
+"I ought to," returned Elmer, "he's my Uncle!"
+
+"The two tall men in the party are my father and the cashier of the
+Night and Day bank.  I'll take a sneak, and that will shorten the
+session."
+
+Accordingly, Elmer strolled along the gangway and came to a halt some
+distance from where the three men had drawn up.
+
+"My boy" Carson went on, looking condescendingly at the youth, "will
+you kindly run up to the second level and tell Mr. Canfield that his
+presence is required by the president of the mining company?"
+
+"I'm not allowed to leave this place, sir," replied Sandy, taking
+offense at the man's air of proprietorship.
+
+"All persons in and about this mine," Carson almost shouted, "are
+subject to my orders.  Run along now, you foolish boy, and don't make
+any trouble for yourself!"
+
+The man's manner was so unnecessarily dictatorial and offensive that
+Sandy found it impossible to restrain his temper.  He was not
+naturally a "fresh" youngster, but now he had passed the limit of
+endurance.
+
+"Aw, go chase yourself!" he said.
+
+"You're discharged!" shouted Carson.
+
+"You didn't hire me!" retorted Sandy.  "You haven't got any right to
+discharge me! I'm going to stay here until I get ready to leave!"
+
+"If you don't get out of the mine immediately, I'll have you thrown
+out!" shouted Carson. "I never saw such impudence!"
+
+"If I do get out," replied Sandy with a grin, "you'll wish I hadn't!"
+
+Carson turned to Elmer's father and the bank cashier, and the three
+consulted together for a short time.  Then Elmer's father came closer
+to where Sandy was standing.
+
+"Why do you say that?" he asked.  "Why do you think we will wish you
+had remained in case you are sent out of the mine?"
+
+"Because I was left here to prevent robbers getting out of the
+gangway.  They're further in, and have captured three of my chums."
+
+"All nonsense!" shouted Mr. Carson breaking into the conversation
+impatiently.  "These breaker boys never tell the truth!"
+
+"Are you Mr. Buck?" asked Sandy, speaking an undertone to Elmer's
+father.  "Because if you are, you'll find Elmer just a short distance
+ahead.  He's on guard, too.  He didn't want his uncle to recognize
+him, because he says he's always getting up an argument with him."
+
+"I'm glad to know that Elmer is attending to his duty," Mr. Buck
+answered.  "Somehow," he continued with a smile, "Stephen Carson
+always rubs Elmer the wrong way of the grain."
+
+"What's he butting in here for?" asked Sandy, while the cashier of the
+Night and Day bank and the miner stood by waiting for the peace
+negotiations to conclude.
+
+"Why, he came in to get his two hundred thousand." replied Mr. Buck.
+"He thinks he knows now right where he left it."
+
+"Does he often get foolish in the head like that?" asked Sandy with a
+grin.  "If he does, he ought to hire a couple of detectives to keep
+track of him when he is wandering out in the night!"
+
+"Oh, Stephen is usually a pretty level-headed sort of a fellow!"
+replied Mr. Buck.  "He is out of humor just now because he has always
+denied that he visited the mine during his two weeks of absence.  He
+is one of the men who dislike very much to be caught in an error of
+any kind."
+
+"So he knows where the money is?" asked Sandy.
+
+"He says he can find it if he can secure the services of Canfield, the
+caretaker.  He remembers now of getting in the mine, and of hearing
+footsteps in the darkness.  His impression at that time was that
+robbers had followed him in, so he unloaded the banknotes in a small
+chamber which he is now able to describe accurately but which he
+cannot, of course, find."
+
+"Was the money hidden on this level?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Yes, on this level."
+
+"In this gangway?"
+
+"He thinks it was hidden here."
+
+"Right about here, or further on?"
+
+"Right about here," was the answer, "he seems to remember something
+about Tunnel Six.  He thinks he hid the money there!  As soon as he
+finds Canfield, the caretaker will probably be able to tell him
+exactly how Tunnel Six looks."
+
+"It looks all in a mess right now!  I can tell you that," grinned
+Sandy.
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"I mean that there's been doings here!" replied Sandy.
+
+"Are there really robbers in there?"
+
+"Sure, there are robbers in there!"
+
+"Then perhaps we'd better bring in a squad of deputies."
+
+"If you'll just let us boys alone," Sandy said, "we'll bring the money
+out if it's anywhere in the mine, but if this man Carson goes to
+butting in at this time, he'll have to dig out his own money.  He
+won't believe there's any robbers in there, and he wants to fire me
+out of the mine, so I guess we'd better let him go his own gait a
+little while."
+
+"He'll do that anyhow no matter what you say!" replied Mr. Buck.
+
+"Look here!" shouted Carson, starting forward with his stomach out and
+his fat shoulders thrown back, "what's all this conversation about?
+Why don't some one go up and get Canfield, and why isn't that young
+rowdy thrown out of the mine?  I won't have him in here!"
+
+"Say," Sandy broke in, "Mr. Buck says that you're looking for Tunnel
+Six.  If you are, I can show you right where it is!"
+
+"Do so, then!" shouted Carson.
+
+"Go straight ahead," Sandy directed, "and when the robbers begin to
+shoot, you command them to throw down their weapons in the name of the
+law!  They'll probably do it, all right, if you tell them to but
+you'll be lucky if they don't throw them down your throat!"
+
+"Do you mean to tell me," screamed Carson, "that there are actually
+robbers here, and that they have taken possession of Tunnel Six?"
+
+"That's the idea," replied Sandy.
+
+"Why, that's where I put my--"
+
+"That's where you put your money, is it?" Sandy went on.
+
+"I never saw such impudence!" roared Carson.
+
+"Well, go on and get your money!" advised Sandy.  "Just go straight
+down the gangway until you come to a face of rock and then switch off
+to the left, and you'll find yourself in a chamber used at present by
+robbers and hold-up men as a winter resort."
+
+"Oh you can't frighten me!" declared Carson.  "I believe that you're
+here in quest of the money yourself!"
+
+"That's right!" admitted Sandy.  "Go on in, now, and tell the robbers
+to give up your hoarded gold!  Just butt in, and tell 'em what you
+want them       to do!  They'll probably do just as you tell them to!"
+
+"I never saw such imprudence in my life!" roared Carson, wiping his
+perspiring forehead with a large red silk handkerchief.
+
+"I don't see where the impudence comes in!" replied Sandy.  "You said
+you wanted to find Tunnel Number Six in order that you might locate
+your money.  I'm telling you where it is, and what to do to get it!"
+
+"Old Stephen never took a bluff in his life!" chuckled Mr. Buck.  "Now
+see if he doesn't go stalking down that passage and declaring himself
+in the name of the law!"
+
+The banker did exactly what Mr. Buck had predicted.  He went storming
+down the passage, giving notice to all intruders to walk out of his
+mine in a peaceable manner.  Mr. Buck followed along until he came to
+where Elmer was standing with his back against the wall, and then the
+two paused and entered into conversation.  The cashier of the Night
+and Day bank and the miner started back toward the shaft.
+
+"What's the matter?" shouted Sandy.  "Why don't you stay and see the
+fun?  There'll be shooting here directly!"
+
+The miner and the cashier now took to their heels and were soon of out
+of sight.  Every moment the boy expected to see a flash of fire in the
+gangway.  Carson was now very near to Tunnel Six, and it seemed certain
+that the outlaws must soon open fire on him.
+
+"Come back, Stephen!" shouted Mr. Buck.  "Don't make a fool of
+yourself!"
+
+"This is all pure bluff!" shouted Carson.  "There are no robbers here
+at all.  This is a scheme to keep me out of Tunnel Six, where I
+believe my money to be hidden!"
+
+They saw Carson halt in his rather clumsy passage down the gangway,
+and draw an automatic from his pocket.
+
+There was a quick shot and the banker rushed ahead!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+"I TOLD YOU SO!"
+
+
+Directly Elmer, Sandy and Mr. Buck heard the banker shouting at the
+top of his lungs and dashed on toward the mysterious tunnel.
+
+"He'll get his head shot off in there!" exclaimed Sandy.
+
+"I don't care if he does!" declared Elmer.
+
+"Your uncle isn't such a bad old fellow, after all," Mr. Buck exclaimed.
+"He has plenty of courage, at any rate!"
+
+"But I don't understand why they don't open fire on him!" exclaimed
+Sandy.  "The robbers certainly were in there not very long ago.  We
+heard the scuffle when they geezled Jimmie."
+
+"Who fired that shot?" asked Mr. Buck.
+
+"Uncle Stephen did," replied Elmer.  "I saw the flash spring out from
+the spot where he stood!"
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" exclaimed Sandy.  "The old chap
+is actually making his bluff good!  He's getting into Tunnel Six
+single handed and alone!  I guess we'll have to advertise for those
+three outlaws if we find 'em in here!  He's a nervy old follow, isn't
+he?"
+
+The three now followed fast on the heels of the banker, and soon came
+to where he stood swinging his searchlight at the end of a short drift
+which ended, after sliding under a dip, in a chamber which, at first
+glance seemed to be piled high with a with a mass of shale.
+
+While the three looked on, Carson dropped on his knees beside a
+crevice in the wall and began an eager exploration of the opening.
+
+Directly he sprang to his feet with rage and disappointment showing on
+every feature of his face.  He raved about the cluttered chamber for a
+moment, almost dancing up and down in his anger and chagrin, and then
+sat limply down on the pile of shale.
+
+"It's gone!" he said.  "The money's gone!"
+
+"So it wasn't hidden back there in that cross cutting at all?" asked
+Sandy.  "We thought sure we had a cinch on the coin several hours
+ago!"
+
+"It was hidden here in this chamber!" declared Carson wearily.  "The
+minute I entered the place I remembered where I had hidden it.  And
+now it's gone!  I've had all my trouble for nothing."
+
+As he ceased speaking, he glanced suspiciously at Sandy.  And Sandy,
+in turn, made a most provoking face.
+
+"I believe you know something about my money!" Carson said.
+
+"Sure I do!" replied Sandy.
+
+"Then where is it?"
+
+"The robbers got it!"
+
+"That's a nice story to tell," howled Carson.  "If you think I'm going
+to be defrauded out of my money in this way, you're very much
+mistaken!"
+
+Without paying any further attention to the threats of the banker,
+Sandy stepped over to Elmer's, side and pointed up the deserted shaft.
+
+"There's where the robbers went," he said, "and they doubtless took
+Carson's money with them.  I don't understand why Will didn't stop
+them."
+
+"Will and George probably released their friends and went away,"
+complained Elmer.  "I don't think they showed very good judgment in
+doing that, either.  The result is that the money has disappeared
+entirely.  A short time ago, Uncle might have reclaimed it."
+
+"We don't know whether the money has gone beyond recall or not,"
+replied Sandy.  "I don't believe Will and George ever left the old
+shaft unguarded.  They are still somewhere in this vicinity!"
+
+Carson now blustered up to Sandy and pointed an accusing finger into
+the lad's face.  Sandy regarded him with indifference.
+
+"Now that your story of the robbers has been disproved," Carson
+shouted, "you may as well tell me who took my money.  If I had not the
+courage to make this investigation in person, that cheap story of the
+robbers would have held good for all time!"
+
+"That's a horse on me, all right!" admitted Sandy.  "I don't know
+where the robbers are, unless they went up through that old shaft, and
+it doesn't seem as if the boys would permit that!"
+
+"Too thin!  Entirely too thin!" declared Carson.  "A moment ago you
+tried to tell me that the money wasn't hidden near Tunnel Six at all,
+but was hidden back there near the cross-cutting."
+
+"We had good reason to believe it was hidden there!" replied Sandy.
+"We found a burned ten dollar banknote there just after a dynamite
+explosion had taken place."
+
+"That would naturally lead to the supposition that the money had been
+hidden there!" Mr. Buck exclaimed.
+
+"Come to think of it," Sandy went on, "I believe that was one of
+Ventner's tricks.  I believe he blew down those pillars and burned the
+banknote for the express purpose of making us search two or three
+weeks in the wrong place.  I guess we have underestimated that
+fellow's ability.  He's a keener man than I supposed!"
+
+"I don't quite see the point to that," Elmer suggested.  "When you say
+that Ventner probably caused you to dig in the wrong place, you admit
+that he must have known something about the right place.  Now, how
+could he have known anything about where to look for that money?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Sandy.  "But when you say that he might have
+known exactly where to look, you set him down as a fool, because he
+has been searching a long time and never came upon it until today."
+
+"I think I can understand that," Mr. Buck said.  "This man you speak
+of probably knew where to find the money provided he could discover
+the right drift, bench, chamber or tunnel.  Like Mr. Carson, here, he
+could doubtless go straight to the cache if directed into the right
+apartment."
+
+While the four stood together at the bottom of the chamber, their
+searchlights making the place as light as day, an exclamation came
+from the shaft above, followed by two pistol shots.
+
+Carson dropped to his knees and began twisting at his automatic, which
+had in some way become entangled in the lining of his pocket.
+
+"There are your robbers!" he shouted.  "Put out your lights!"
+
+"Don't you do anything of the kind!" argued Sandy.  "Get out of range
+of the old shaft and keep your lights burning so you can shoot any one
+who drops down!  I guess we have them hemmed in!"
+
+"It's a scheme to get away with my money!" shouted Carson.
+
+"I wish you had your old money chucked down your throat!" exclaimed
+Sandy.  "I'm getting sick of the sound of the word!"
+
+All members of the party now drew back toward the dip, where they were
+entirely concealed from any one in the old shaft.
+
+Directly there was a rattling of shale and slate, and then the lights
+showed the figure of Tommy sitting astride the peak of the pyramid.
+
+"What are you fellows trying to do down there?" he asked.
+
+"We're looking for Carson's money?" replied Sandy.
+
+"Did you get it?" the boy demanded.
+
+"Not yet!"
+
+"That's the boy that's got my money!" shouted the banker.
+
+"Money's a good thing to have!" grinned Tommy.
+
+"What have you done with the highwaymen?" asked Sandy.
+
+"Why continue this senseless talk about highwaymen?" demanded Carson,
+"when you know just as well as I do that there are no robbers here
+other than yourselves!  Mr. Buck," he added, turning to Elmer's
+father, "I call upon you to assist me in restraining these robbers
+until the proper officers can be summoned."
+
+"Where did that fat man come from?" asked Tommy.
+
+"You impertinent rascal!" shouted Carson.
+
+"Sure!" answered Tommy.  "But where did you say you came from?"
+
+"I'm president of this mining company!" screamed Carson, "and I'll
+have you all in jail if you don't produce my money!"
+
+"Is this the gentleman who went batty and lost two hundred thousand
+dollars?" asked Tommy, sliding down from the slate pyramid and
+standing beside Sandy.
+
+"That is believed to be the man!" laughed Sandy.
+
+"Believed to be!" roared Carson.
+
+"Does he know where he left the money?" asked Tommy.
+
+"Sure I know where I left my money, you young Jackanapes!" declared
+Carson.  "I pointed out the exact hiding place only a few moments
+ago!"
+
+"You found it empty?"
+
+"Yes, I found it empty!" roared Carson.
+
+"Then," Tommy suggested, "we've all got to get busy."
+
+"What do you mean by that?" demanded Carson.
+
+Before Tommy could reply, Will came sliding down the rope and landed
+within a few feet of where the little group stood.
+
+"Look here, Will," Tommy said, "Are you sure we made a good search of
+those three ginks?  They've got the money all right!"
+
+"How do you know they did?" demanded Will.
+
+"That fat man over there who looks as if he was about to bust," Tommy
+grinned, "is Mr. Carson, the man who hid the money and couldn't find
+it again.  He's just been looking in the place where he concealed it,
+and it isn't there! We've got to get busy!"
+
+"I don't understand this at all," Mr. Buck interrupted.
+
+"It's just this way," Will said, facing the speaker, "we caught the
+three men who were wandering about in the mine.  We rescued our chums
+first, and then when the outlaws heard your party advancing they
+scrambled up the old shaft and took to their heels supposing, of
+course, that we had lost no time in getting out of the mine."
+
+"And you geezled them all?" asked Sandy.
+
+"The whole three!" replied Will.  "All we had to do was to stretch a
+rope across a passage, trip them up, and do a little winding around
+their graceful forms before they could catch their breath.  They are
+all tied up good and tight now."
+
+"And you searched them for the money and didn't find it?" shouted
+Carson.
+
+"And we searched them for the money and didn't find it!" repeated
+Will.
+
+"I don't believe it!" shouted Carson.  "You'll be telling me in a
+moment, when I ask you to produce your robbers, that they have broken
+their bonds and escaped!"
+
+At that moment, George's voice was heard calling down the shaft:
+
+"Break for the main shaft!" they heard him saying.  "Head those
+fellows off.  They cut their ropes and got away!"
+
+"I told you so!" thundered Carson.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+"Bright boys up there!" exclaimed Will, as the unwelcome news of the
+escape of the robbers came down the old shaft.
+
+"Me for the elevator?" shouted Tommy.
+
+All four boys, Will, Elmer, Tommy and Sandy started in a mad race down
+the gangway.  As they carried their searchlights with them, and as Mr.
+Carson and Mr. Buck moved at a slower pace, the latter gentlemen were
+soon feeling their way through the dark tunnel.
+
+"We've just got to head 'em off!" grunted Tommy as the boys passed
+along at a pace calculated to break the long distance running records.
+
+"I don't believe they'll make for the main shaft anyway," Sandy
+panted.
+
+"I don't believe they will, either," Will declared, "but if we get to
+the lift first, we'll be dead sure they don't got out!"
+
+Will was in advance as they swung into the lighted space about the
+shaft.  The first thing be observed was that one of the cages was just
+starting upward.  He sprang to the push button and almost instantly
+the cage dropped back to the third level again.  The power was on in
+honor of the visit of the president of the company.
+
+"Pile in, boys!" he shouted.  "We'll stop at the second level!"
+
+The man at the top responded nobly to the quick signals given to start
+and stop, and in a very short space of time the elevator stood at the
+second level.  The bar was down, but Will threw it aside and stepped
+out into the passage.  There he saw the bank cashier and the miner
+standing cowering against the wall only a few feet from the shaft.
+
+"What are you doing here?" asked Will.
+
+"We started to the top," the miner replied, "but stopped here because
+we thought there might be need of our assistance on this level."
+
+"Why on this level?" asked Will, observing that the miner was pretty
+thoroughly frightened.  "I haven't heard of any disturbance here!"
+
+"But there has been a disturbance here!" insisted the cashier.  "We
+heard scuffling out there in the darkness, but as we had no lights, we
+could not investigate.  My friend, the miner, had a light on the lower
+level, but he lost it as we made our way out to the shaft."
+
+"Has any one passed up the shaft?" asked Will.
+
+The miner shook his head.
+
+"Then we're on time all right!" cried Will exultantly.  "We have the
+outlaws headed off!"
+
+The heavy voices of the two men who had been left on the lower level
+now came rumbling up the shaft.
+
+"What do you mean by leaving us in this plight?" demanded Carson.
+"Lower the cage and take us to the top!"
+
+"Stay down there and look after your money!" cried Sandy, mockingly.
+
+"I think I know where my money is!" shouted Carson.
+
+"I wish I knew!" returned Sandy.
+
+In the moment of silence which followed, the boys instantly and heard
+the call of the Beaver Patrol ringing down the second level.
+
+"George seems to be alive anyway!" laughed Tommy.
+
+A moment later a snarling sound which seemed to emanate from a whole
+pack of Wolves reached the ears of the boys.
+
+"Why didn't you tell me there were wild animals in the mine?" shouted
+the cashier.  "Let me into that cage immediately!"
+
+"Don't be in a hurry," advised Tommy.  "All the Wolves and Beavers
+you'll find in here won't do you any harm!"
+
+While Carson and Elmer's father continued to call from below, and
+while the Boy Scout challenges rang in the second level, two pistol
+shots were heard not far away from the shaft.
+
+The cashier and the miner both broke for the cage, but were turned
+back at the point of Sandy's automatic revolver.
+
+"You stopped here because you though you might be of some assistance,
+you know," the boy said.  "Now you just remain here long enough to
+help out."
+
+"But there are people being murdered in there!" cried the cashier.
+
+Two more shots came from the gangway and then the stout figure of the
+detective came staggering into the circle of light around the shaft.
+He had evidently been wounded seriously, for he fell as he drew near
+to where the boys were standing and raised his eyes in a piteous
+appeal for help.  Will stooped over and felt of his pulse.
+
+"You're about done for!" the boy said in a husky tone.  "Who did it?"
+
+"Those two hold-up men," was the faint reply.
+
+"Where are they now?" asked Will.
+
+"I fired back," replied the detective wit a grim smile, "and I guess
+they're lying on the floor of the passage!"
+
+Will bent closer over the wounded detective while Tommy and Sandy
+started down the gangway on a run, closely followed by Elmer.
+
+"Why did they shoot you?" asked Will.
+
+"I found the money," Ventner replied, "and hid it in a crevice in the
+wall, and they found it.  When we managed to escape by cutting the
+ropes I saw them take the money and disappear in the darkness.  I
+followed on and accused them of the act and they shot me!  Then I shot
+back, and I guess it's a pretty bad mess, when you take it altogether!"
+
+"Where is the money?" asked Will.
+
+"They have it in their possession," was the reply, "if they haven't
+hidden it again."
+
+Before the wounded detective could continue, George, Jimmie, Dick,
+Canfield, Sandy and Tommy came running out of the gangway.
+
+"Where's Elmer?" asked Will.
+
+"We left him back there talking with one of the hold-up men," replied
+George.  "They're both badly hurt, and won't last long!"
+
+"I'm not sorry!" moaned Ventner.
+
+A moment later, Elmer came out of the passage with a bill-book of good
+size in his hand.  He lifted the book gaily as he entered the
+illumination.
+
+"I'll bet he's got the money!" exclaimed Tommy.
+
+"Sure he has!" replied Will, and Elmer nodded.
+
+The voices of Carson and Buck again came roaring up from below.
+
+"Why don't you lower the cage?" Carson shouted.  "I'm going to have
+every one of you arrested as soon as I find an officer!  You can't
+work any of your gold brick schemes on me!"
+
+"We may as well drop down and take them aboard," laughed Will.
+
+Carson was swelling with rage when he step onto the platform of the
+list.  He shook his fiercely under Will's nose, and announced that
+would have him wearing handcuffs before night.
+
+"How much reward was offered for the return that two hundred thousand
+dollars?" asked the boy without paying any attention to the angry
+demonstrations of the banker.
+
+"Twenty thousand dollars!" replied Carson.  "But you'll never get a
+cent of it.  I hired a party of Boy Scouts to come here from Chicago
+and look into the case, but they never came near me."
+
+"When you write to Chicago again," Will replied with a smile as the
+elevator stopped at the second level, "just tell Mr. Horton that the
+Beaver's didn't succeed in getting the money, but that the Wolves did.
+Elmer has the money in his possession this minute!"
+
+"Impossible!" shouted Carson.
+
+"Hand him the money, Elmer," requested Will.
+
+Carson snatched the bill book as it was held out to him and began
+looking through the ten thousand dollar banknotes which it contained.
+
+"The next time you get drunk and fall out of your machine, don't
+accuse every one you meet of robbing you!" Sandy cut in.
+
+"Are you the boys who came on from Chicago?" demanded Carson.
+
+"Sure," replied Will.
+
+"I guess I'm an old fool!" admitted Carson.  "Here I've been roaming
+around about half a day accusing you boys of stealing my money, when
+all the time you were planning on returning it to me!"
+
+"Do we get the reward now?" asked Will.
+
+"Twenty thousand and expenses!" replied Carson.  "I'll settle with
+Elmer and his chums later."
+
+"It's a shame to take the money!" declared Sandy, but Will gave him a
+sharp punch in the back and he cut off any further remarks which he
+might have had in his mind.
+
+The story ends here because the adventure ended with the finding of
+the money.  The old tool house was deserted that night.  The two
+hold-up men and the detective recovered after a long illness in a
+Pittsburgh hospital.  The detective was permitted to go his way after
+promising to keep out of crooked detective deals in the future.  He
+never told how or where he received his information about the lost
+money.  The hold-up men were given long sentences in prison.
+
+A few weeks later, when the mining company resumed operations at the
+Labyrinth, Tunnel Six was walled up.  Mr. Carson, the president,
+declared that it made what few hairs he had left stand on end to think
+of the experiences he had endured there!
+
+However, there are still stories about the breaker, that on dark,
+nights, when the wind blows, and the rain falls in great sheets, there
+are mysterious lights floating about Tunnel Six.
+
+Jimmie and Dick often tell exactly how these lights were made and how
+they enjoyed themselves down in the bowels of the earth, but
+superstitious miners still claim that the boys were not responsible
+for all the lights which burned there!
+
+Dick and Jimmie also have their joke with the Beaver Patrol boys
+whenever they meet, declared that if they had not finally relented and
+dropped the string the boys had carried into the mine for their own
+protection, they would still be wandering around in the Labyrinth
+Mine.
+
+"And now," Will said as they settled down in their old room on
+Washington boulevard, "we going to be good boys from this time on and
+remain in Chicago and stay at home nights!"
+
+However, in three days, the boys were preparing for another bit of
+adventure, the details of which will be found in the next volume of
+this, series entitled:
+
+"Boy Scouts in Alaska; or, The Camp on Glacier."
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BOY SCOUTS IN THE COAL CAVERNS ***
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