CHAPTER XXIII
TRAPPED IN A LIVING TOMB
After the first excitement and confusion had quieted down a bit, the major and the professor began discussing ways and means for exploring the cavern.
“When shall we start?” asked Merritt.
“At once, I think,” said the major.
“I agree with you,” said the professor; “no time like the present.”
“That being the case,” declared the major with a smile, “Jumbo had better set out for the canoes at once, and bring some provisions and the lanterns.”
The lanterns referred to were of the variety used by miners, which had been brought along for the special purpose in which they were now to be employed.
But Jumbo was not allowed to set off alone on his expedition. The eager Boy Scouts raced off with him. They soon returned with a supply of canned goods, plenty of matches and some firearms and the lanterns. The latter were quickly lighted and, each member of the party shouldering a burden, the dash into the cave was begun.
It was a creepy, mysterious sensation. The light seemed to go out with a sudden snap as they passed the portals of the cave entrance. Only the yellow light of the lanterns, pale after the bright sunshine, illumined the damp walls. A queer, dead, musty smell was in the air.
“Better proceed carefully,” said the professor; “we may encounter a pocket of poisonous air before long.”
“I thought we were looking for a pocket full of money,” whispered Tubby to Merritt, behind whom he was pacing.
The party had to advance in single file, for beyond the entrance of the cave was a narrow passage.
“I wonder how your ancestor ever located this place?” said Rob, wonderingly, as they proceeded cautiously.
“The family legend has it that he came in here in pursuit of a wounded wild animal he had shot, and which sought refuge here,” said the major.
It was a strange, rather uncanny feeling to be treading the long unused path leading into the bowels of the cliff. They talked in whispers and low tones. A loud voice would go rumbling off in a weird way, not altogether comfortable to listen to.
“Gee! I wouldn’t much care to be trapped in here,” said Tubby, as they pressed on.
All at once the path they had been following took a sudden dip. Right under their feet was a narrow chasm. If they had not had lights they might have been precipitated into it, but luckily their lanterns showed them the peril just in time.
For a short time it looked as if the treasure hunt would have to end right there. There seemed to be no means of crossing the chasm, and they had brought none with them.
“So near and yet so far,” breathed Merritt.
But presently the major discovered a stout plank resting against the wall of the passage. It was worm-eaten and old, but a test showed it would support them. It had evidently been left there by the old buccaneer. It caused an odd thrill to shoot through Rob, as he stepped upon it, to reflect that the last foot to press it had been in the tomb for many scores of years.
On the other side of the chasm the cave widened out. In fact, it developed into quite a spacious chamber. The rock walls, imbedded with mica, glistened brightly in the yellow glow of the lanterns.
“We look like a convention of lightning bugs,” commented Tubby, gazing about him at the unusual scene. The professor drew out a paper. He and the major bent over it, while the others listened breathlessly to ascertain the outcome of this inspection of the plan of the long lost treasure trove.
“According to the plan the treasure is located in this chamber,” said the major at length.
“At any rate,” added the professor, “the plan does not give any further details of the cave.”
“Do you think it extends further?” inquired Merritt.
“Impossible to say. Some of these caves and their ramifications extend for many miles. When the major has concluded his quest, I think it would be of scientific interest to explore the subterranean thoroughfares at length.”
All agreed with this view. But the present business speedily banished all other thoughts from their minds. Like so many hounds on the scent, the boys ran about the place, seeking for clews to the hiding place. But to their bitter disappointment all their efforts resulted in nothing. No trace of any hoarded stock of precious articles could be found.
“We had better have something to eat and then we can determine on our further course,” said the major, looking at his watch; “I am convinced that the treasure is here, however, and equally positive we shall find it.”
When they sat down to their meal it was discovered that, in their haste, they had forgotten to bring any water. Tubby, Hiram and Jumbo at once volunteered to fetch some in the canteens which had been left in the canoes.
“Ah’m jes’ pinin’ ter see dat ole Massa Sol once mo’;” confessed the negro.
“All right,” said the major, “you can be one of the party, Jumbo. But hurry back, Hopkins, for I am anxious to waste no more time than necessary.”
“We’ll hurry,” Tubby assured him.
The trio, the two boys and the black, hastened off, retracing their steps through the dark passage of the cavern. It was a distinct relief to regain the sunlight and open air. So much so that perhaps they lingered by the concealed canoes rather longer than they should have done.
“Come on. We’ve wasted enough time,” said Tubby at length; “let’s hurry back.”
They set out at a good pace. But as they pushed through the brush separating them from the cliff; in the face of which was situated the cave entrance, a sudden sound brought them to an abrupt standstill. Tubby, who was in the lead, raised his hand for silence.
In the hush that followed they could distinctly catch the sound of voices ahead of them. At first Tubby thought that they were those of some of the party in the cave who had come out to see what had become of them. But he was speedily undeceived.
One of the voices struck suddenly on his ear with an unpleasant shock. It was a harsh, grating voice, and Tubby, to his dismay, recognized it in a flash as being that of Stonington Hunt. He had heard it too often to be mistaken.
“Are you all ready?” Hunt was saying.
A sort of growl of assent followed these words.
“What can they be up to?” asked Hiram, who was also aware now of the identity of the voices in front of them.
“I don’t know,” rejoined Tubby in the same low tones; “as well as I can see, they are all on that cliff top alongside those balanced stones.”
“Wonder what they are doing up there?” mused Hiram; “I suppose that – ”
His voice was drowned in a loud crash as the larger of two stones was pushed over the edge of the cliff. In a flash Tubby perceived the fiendish object of Stonington Hunt and his followers.
The great rock fell directly in front of the opening of the cave. The way in or out of the underground chamber was effectually blocked, unless the obstruction was blasted with dynamite.
Cold chills ran up and down Tubby’s spine. Hiram shuddered and turned white, and Jumbo groaned.
“Oh lawsy! lawsy! I knowed no good ’ud come uv meddling wif dat ole dead teef’s money.”
“Be quiet,” ordered Tubby, sternly. With every nerve on the alert he watched Hunt peer over the cliff-face. The next moment their enemy retreated with a chuckle of laughter.
“They’re all sealed up good and tight,” he said. “We’ll let them stay in there a day or two and then we’ll blast the rock away.”
“Gee, that fat kid will be thinner when he gets out,” Tubby heard Freeman Hunt say as his father rejoined the group.
“Ho! ho!” thought the lad, “‘that fat kid’ as you call him is on the outside, Master Hunt. And it’s a good thing he is, for the outside is where help will have to come from.”
The watchers concealed in the brush below saw a new figure join the group on the cliff summit, a man with a great, bushy, black beard and shifty black eyes.
“Mah goodness!” exclaimed Jumbo; “dat am de pussonage who peeked frough dem bushes las’ night. I thought I knowed him. Dat’s Black Bart, the sun-shiner.”
The party at the cliff summit turned and vanished. Apparently they had a camp up there from which they had observed every movement of the Boy Scout party. It was plain enough now, since Jumbo’s recognition, how they came to be there. Black Bart must have overheard the major discussing the plan the night before. By making a forced march by night the rascals had arrived ahead of the rightful searchers for the old buccaneer’s hoard.
“We’d better get back toward the boats before they take a notion to investigate,” said Tubby. “I don’t fancy sticking around here much longer.”
“Nor I,” said Hiram; “come on.”
“Golly knows ah’m willin’,” breathed Jumbo.
Snugly hidden in the thick growth into which the canoes had been dragged, the two Scouts and the negro discussed the situation. It was a desperate one. For the present, at least, Hunt and his party dominated it. One unpleasant thought, too, kept obtruding itself. The party in the cave had no water.
“And Hunt says he won’t blast it open for two days, anyhow,” put in Hiram; “I suppose he figures that the major would be too weak to oppose him then.”
“Guess that’s it. What a rascal that Hunt is! But what are we going to do to help them? We can’t move that rock, and we’ve got nothing to blast it away with.”
Tubby’s face showed the dismay, the almost despair, that he felt.
“Tell you what, Hiram,” he said at length, “you’ll have to take one of the canoes and get off down the lake. When you reach the foot of it make a dash to the westward, where there is a village. I’ll wait here with Jumbo till you return.”
“But it will take two days, at least, maybe a week,” objected Hiram.
“Can’t be helped. We’ve got to do something. You are lighter and can travel quicker than I. Take food and a rifle and get through as quick as you can.”
Ten minutes later the red canoe, well stocked with food, and paddled by the young Scout, shot out from the shore. By hugging the rim of the lake the boys had figured that he would be able to undertake the first stage of his journey without running much risk of being seen by their enemies. Besides, it was unlikely that Hunt or his cronies would be keeping a very keen lookout as they evidently believed that all the party was imprisoned in the cave.
Tubby and Jumbo watched the canoe while it remained in sight, and then returned to their hiding place. Toward the middle of the afternoon they saw smoke on the cliff top and well back from the edge.
“At any rate,” thought Tubby, “they are camped at a good distance back from us. I reckon there’s no danger of their seeing us moving about.”
With great caution the lad wormed his way through the brush, leaving Jumbo to guard the canoes. He had formed a daring determination to examine the rock and see if it was not possible in some miraculous way to move it. But an examination confirmed his worst fears.
The great stone was as immovable as if it had formed a part of the living rock. Tubby actually gave a groan of despair.
“There’s not a thing we can do,” he moaned disconsolately. A sudden footfall above him made him dive into the brush. He flattened out, immovable, in a flash. The next instant Hunt strode into the glade, followed by his son. They also examined the stone.
“If they won’t come to our terms,” said Hunt, as they turned away again, “we can immure them in a living tomb.”
Tubby Hopkins, lying as quiet as a rabbit in his place of concealment, could not but feel the bitter truth the words held.
* * * * * * * *
“Those fellows are a long time getting that water, and I’m as dry as a jar of salt,” said Merritt, as they munched on their provisions.
“I guess we’re all pretty thirsty,” said the major. “Perhaps you’d better go and hurry them up, my boy.”
Merritt sprinted off on this errand. He had almost reached the ravine and was about to step on the narrow bridge across it when there was a sudden crashing jar that shook the earth.
Though, of course, he did not know it, the noise was occasioned by the falling rock dislodged by Hunt and his followers.
“Wonder what that was?” thought the boy, little guessing the real cause.
“If we were in the west I should think it was an earthquake. But I never heard of any in the Adirondacks.”
Before long he gained a point in the passage where he knew he should have seen a disc of daylight ahead of him. Puzzled by its absence, the boy pushed on. Every minute he expected to see the light, but the darkness continued to prevail. Sorely perplexed, he took a few steps more, when he was abruptly confronted by a mass of solid rock. The passage appeared to have terminated.
It was several moments before the meaning of this conveyed itself to the boy’s mind. When he mastered the situation it was with a sense of shock that for an instant almost deprived him of his senses.
Recovering his wits he lost no time in communicating his alarming intelligence. Incidentally, the cause of the noise he had heard was abundantly explained.
It required but a brief examination by the major, to make known the full extent of their calamity.
“We are walled in,” he said hoarsely.
“Is there no hope of escape?” gasped the professor. The boys were too much overcome to speak.
The major shook his head. Unconsciously he repeated Tubby’s words.
“Help, if it is to come, must come from the outside,” he said.
His words rang hollowly in the musty, subterranean passage.
CHAPTER XXIV
TWO COLUMNS OF SMOKE
Through the deep woods a boyish figure was creeping. It was Hiram, footsore, sick and despondent. It was the second day since he had left the scene of the Boy Scouts’ misfortune. Behind him lay the lake. And that was about all he knew definitely of his situation.
For the last hour of his slow progress over the cruelly rough ground, the lad’s heart had almost failed him. But he had kept pluckily on. At last, though, he was compelled, from sheer exhaustion, to sink down under a big hickory tree. He was lost, hopelessly lost in the midst of the Adirondack wilds.
Few men or boys who have ever been in a similar fix will not realize the extreme danger of Hiram’s position. There are still vast tracks in these mountains untrodden, except, perchance, at long intervals, by the foot of man. The predicament of one who misses his way in their lonely stretches is serious indeed. Hiram was a nervous, sensitive boy, moreover, and, as the dark shadows of late afternoon began to steal through the woods, he felt a sense of keen fear, and alarm. He even thought he could make out the forms of savage beasts prowling about him.
At last the boy determined, by a brave effort, to make the best of it. He ate a meal of bread and salt meat from his haversack and washed it down with water from his canteen. Then he set himself to thinking about a way out of his position.
But as is often the case with those hopelessly lost in the wilderness, his brain refused to work coherently. A sort of panic had clutched him. To his excited, overwrought imagination it appeared that it was his fate, his destiny to die alone in these great, silent woods, stretching, for all he knew, to infinity on every side of him.
“I must brace up and do something,” thought Hiram desperately; “maybe I haven’t wandered as far as I think. Perhaps a signal fire might be seen by somebody. I’ll try it, anyhow.”
The thought of doing something cheered him mightily. The task of gathering wood and bark to make his fire also helped to keep his mind off his predicament.
The young Scout built his fire on the summit of the highest bit of ground he could find. It was a bare hillock, rocky and bleak, rising amid the trees.
The fire Hiram constructed was, properly speaking, composed of two piles of sticks and dry leaves and bark. Close at hand he piled a big armful of extra fuel to keep it going. For he had determined to watch by the fires all night, if necessary. It was, he felt, his last hope.
The fires arranged to his satisfaction, the boy set a match to each pile in turn. From the midst of the forest two columns of smoke ascended. The afternoon was still. Not a breath of wind ruffled a leaf. In the calm air the columns of smoke shot up straight. Hiram piled green leaves on his blazing heaps and the smoke grew thicker.
The message the two smoke columns spelled out, in Scout talk, was this:
“I am lost, help!”
Hiram knew if there were any Scouts within seeing distance of the two smoke columns, that he would be saved. If not – but he did not dare to dwell on that thought.
The late afternoon deepened into twilight, and still Hiram sat on, feeding his fires, although the flames of hope in his heart had died out into gray ashes of despair. As the darkness thickened and a gloom spread through the woods, his fears and nervousness increased. It is one thing to have a companion in the woods and the surety of a camp fire and comfort at night, and quite another pair of shoes to be lost in the impenetrable forest. Anybody who has experienced the dilemma can appreciate something of poor Hiram’s state of mind.
It grew almost dark. The two fires glowed in the twilight like two red eyes.
All at once Hiram almost uttered a shout of alarm. Then he grew still, his heart beating till it shook his frame. Somewhere, close to him, a twig had cracked. He was certain, too, that he had seen a dark form dodge behind a tree.
“Who’s there,” he cried shrilly.
As if in reply, from behind the surrounding trees, a dozen dark forms suddenly emerged and started toward him. Half beside himself with alarm, Hiram, his mind full of visions of moonshiners, Indians and desperadoes, leaped to his feet and started to run for his life.
But he had not gone a dozen steps before he stumbled and fell. As he did so his head struck a rock and the blow stunned him.
The men who had emerged with such suddenness from behind the trees hastened up.
“We needn’t have feared a trap,” said one; “it was a genuine Scout signal. I’m glad my boys taught them to me or we might have been too late to save this boy.”
The speaker was the same man who had recognized Rob Blake, and whose two sons were members of the Curlew Patrol. He picked Hiram up.
“Lost and half scared to death,” he said tenderly; “and just to think that we crept up on him like a bunch of prowling Indians.”
“Well, we’ve got to look out for traps, you know,” put in the leader, the gray-moustached man; “those two smoke columns that you knew the meaning of might have been a trick to decoy us. I’m glad we approached stealthily, but I’m sorry we scared this poor kid so badly.”
“Oh, he’ll be all right directly,” was the easy reply. “Sam, you and Jim get a kettle boiling and make coffee. We’ll camp here to-night,” said Rob’s friend.
He set Hiram down at the root of a big tree just as the lad opened his eyes and gazed with astonishment on the group of stalwart, kind-eyed men gathered in wonderment about him.
* * * * * * * *
It was moonlight, and almost midnight, before Tubby deemed it safe to reconnoitre the vicinity of the cave mouth. Followed by Jumbo, who was quaking with fear, but accompanied the stout youth in preference to being left alone, Tubby cautiously made his way through the undergrowth. A spot of bright light above showed him the location of the camp fire of Hunt’s gang. It was hardly likely that they would be patroling the entrance to the cave, effectually blocked as it was. But Tubby took no chances. With the skill and silence of an Indian he wormed his way along.
He had almost reached the open space where they had chopped down the brush when, without an instant’s warning, the figure of Stonington Hunt strode into view.
At the same unlucky instant Jumbo, lumbering along quite silently, stubbed his toe against an out-cropping rock. He fell headlong with a crash.
“Gollygumptions! I’m killed dead!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, utterly regardless of consequences.
Tubby turned and was about to dodge back into the shelter of the dense growth when Hunt espied him. With an angry oath he sprang at him, pointing a pistol. But Tubby, in a flash, changed his tactics surprisingly. Converting himself into a human battering ram, he lowered his head and rushed full tilt at Hunt.
Completely taken by surprise by Tubby’s onslaught, Hunt stopped and hesitated. The fat boy, at the same instant, rushed between the man’s legs, seizing them in a firm grip as he did so. The unexpected assault resulted in hurling Hunt violently forward. He fell sprawling in a heap. At the same instant his pistol was discharged in the air.
As the report rang out from close at hand half a dozen figures sprang into being. They were those of his followers who had been behind him at some distance on this nocturnal visit of inspection.
Dale and Bumpus instantly recognized Tubby.
“That’s the fat kid who wrecked our sloop!” cried Dale.
“A hundred dollars to the one that gets him!” shouted Hunt from the ground where he still lay.
“How under the sun did he escape?” shouted Freeman Hunt, taking up the chorus of cries and exclamations.
But before Dale, agile as he was, could reach him, Tubby had darted nimbly off. He was heading for the bushes. In another instant he would have reached them but a second figure suddenly dodged into the moonlight and blocked his way. It was Black Bart. He outspread his long arms to catch the hunted youth.
The next instant he had shared Hunt’s fate. Tubby, for the second time that night, executed his skillful tackle. Black Bart, with a string of bad words accompanying his fall, was upset without ceremony. But Dale was close on Tubby’s nimble heels. As the lad dodged from his fallen foe Dale reached out, and his big hand grabbed the fleeing lad’s collar. Tubby gave a dive and a twist but he could not get away.
“Good boy, Dale. Hold him!” came Freeman Hunt’s voice.
Suddenly another figure appeared. The newcomer sprang out of the shadows behind them. With one blow this personage knocked Dale sprawling beside Black Bart, and the next instant, as Pete Bumpus essayed to take part in the fray, he was sent to join the other two.
Tubby felt himself snatched up and carried swiftly off into the darkness of the friendly brush.
“Gollygumptions!” chuckled Jumbo, for it was he, as he ran, “but it shuah did feel good to swat dem no-good trash.”
“Hullo, Jumbo, is that you?” asked Tubby as he heard; “I’ll forgive you for almost getting us captured.”
“Tank you, Marse Hopkins,” rejoined Jumbo gravely; “but we bes’ keep our words till we get furder away. Hark!”
Behind them they could hear angry voices, and shouts and trampling in the brush.
The strong-muscled black, bent almost double, ran swiftly with his burden for some distance further. Then he set Tubby down and rested, breathing heavily. The sounds of the chase came from afar to them, much fainter now.
“Ha! ha!” chortled Jumbo; “dey look an’ look, but dey no find us.”
“That’s all right, too, Jumbo,” said Tubby, sitting down on a decayed log; “but it doesn’t help to get the major and the rest out of that hole in the ground.”
“Maybe Marse Hiram got frough,” suggested Jumbo hopefully.
“I hope so, I’m sure,” said Tubby with a mournful intonation; “it looks now as if that was our only chance of saving them.
“Where are we?” added Tubby, suddenly gazing about him. There was something familiar about the scenery. Especially about a tall, cone-shaped rock that loomed up close at hand.
“That’s Ruby Glow!” he exclaimed the next instant.
“And gollygumptions, ef dere ain’t a spook or suthin’ on top of it,” cried Jumbo.
He pointed to a dark figure standing upright in the white moonlight that flooded the isolated mass of rock.