"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, so close 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 don't 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 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 death!" 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 those 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 Will, 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 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 a long passage.
"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 sly 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.
"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 mine 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."
"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 blocks 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, Mr. 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 get 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 cosy 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 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.
"You've got to explain to 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'll 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 third 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' it?"
"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 for."
"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, first 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, the 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 mines 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. "If 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.
"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 Nankin!" 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 anything's 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 here 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 match 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 thea 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 sieze 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 boys 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 that the fellow's 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 Venter. 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 cosily 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 tho 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 Ventner 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 his 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 and 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 iftheywon'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 well 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 along 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 on this passage! While he's poking around in there, we'll sneak up and see what 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 a 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 a 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 cheeks.
"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!"