"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.
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 bythe caretaker. Five minutes later they were joined by Tommy andSandy.
"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.
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!" demandedGeorge. "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!"
"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?" askedWill. "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!"
"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!" laughedTommy. "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.