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Page 33
"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.
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