CHAPTER XIII.
A VISIT TO THE CAVE.
“I don’t think I’ll ever rest quite easy again until I get these clothes hidden from sight.”
The speaker was Mark. There were quite a number of other plebes with him, seven of them altogether. They were hurrying through the woods north of the post; and a stranger passing by would have been very much surprised indeed to notice that each one of them carried upon his arm a bundle of fantastically-colored clothing.
The seven plebes would have been just as much alarmed, however, as the stranger. They were making desperate efforts to keep their curious burdens hid.
“I’m afraid every moment that somebody’ll step out and surprise us again,” Mark said. “I know I shall die if they do.”
The reason for this desperate secrecy is not far to seek. They wanted to get rid of the telltale disguises.
“If we get it safely put away in our cave,” chuckled Mark as he hurried on, “we may be pretty sure that all danger will be over.”
“I thought I’d die,” remarked one of the others, “when I found that Bull had left it lying in Fort Clinton where anybody might find it. You know when we fellows put the clothes on him so’s to get him arrested for a joke, he must have gotten back to camp pretty late and just had time to peel before reveille in the morning. Bull Harris ought to have been more careful than to leave it there.”
“Doggone his boots!” growled Texas. “Them ole yearlin’s never did have any sense!”
The “den,” toward which the Seven were hurrying, lay about two miles away in the woods. A small hole in the side of a cliff was its only known entrance, discovered by the parson while “geologizin’.” That den was a dark and mysterious place, the source of no end of strange adventures.
As old readers know, it had originally belonged to a gang of counterfeiters some fifty years ago. They had been entrapped in a secret corner of it and accidentally suffocated. Their skeletons had remained there to horrify the plebes, when first they had the temerity to enter the place.
A few days later a treasure had been found there. It proved to be counterfeit in the end, but not until it had given rise to considerable excitement. Altogether, that den was a delicious place in which to spend a holiday afternoon. You never could tell what might happen.
“We haven’t been near it for a week or two,” observed Mark. “I’ve had so much to do I haven’t even had time to think of it. I wonder if anything has happened meanwhile.”
“Perhaps the skeletons have come to life,” hinted Dewey, whereat poor Indian shivered and cried “Oo!”
By this time they had reached their destination. It does not need much describing. There was a tall surface of rock facing the river, which was only a short distance away. The entrance to the cave was completely hidden with a growth of bushes and there was nothing but a few faint footprints to indicate that anybody ever came near the place.
Such was the “den” from the outside. The Seven were climbing up and crawling in head first, so we shall follow them and take a look inside.
By the light of the candles they had brought with them the Seven gazed around. The place looked just the same as usual. There was a long dark vista stretching away in the distance, and gradually receding into darkness. And there were walls sculptured with deep indentations and long passages that crept away from the light.
Altogether it was a very weird and awe-inspiring place, and as a general thing one did not feel like making much noise in it, especially since there were so many echoes to disturb.
“Everything seems to be just where we left it since the night we hazed Bull Harris here,” laughed Mark. “Poor Bull was about scared blue that day.”
“An’ thar’s the shovel the Parson dug his treasure with,” chuckled Texas. “What air we agoin’ to do now?”
“Bury these clothes for the first thing,” was the answer. “Then I can breathe freely again.”
This task was soon accomplished, and then Mark sat down in one of the chairs—for the counterfeiters had furnished their cave.
“I’m thinking,” observed Mark, meditatively, “that we might have a good deal of fun exploring all the passages and dark places in this cave. Who knows what we might find?”
“Whoop!” cried Texas, springing up in excitement. “Sho’ enough! We might find a new entrance!”
“Yes, and we might find some deuced pitfalls, ye know, bah Jove!” observed Chauncey.
“Or bears, b’gee!” chuckled Dewey.
“Oo! oo!” gasped poor Indian. “Don’t talk that way, please. Bless my soul, I know I shall drop dead with fright.”
At that same instant something happened so unexpected and so horrible that it struck them motionless and chill.
A deep low groan, as if of agony, echoed through the lonely cave!
For a moment the Seven glanced at each other in consternation and dread. They were almost paralyzed by the sound, which had evidently come from one of the inner recesses of the cavern. Poor Indian had sunk down on the ground in a heap.
“What’s that?” they cried, and then listened.
But the groan was not repeated. They waited in fear and trembling, but the rocks gave not another sound, and suddenly Mark sprang to his feet.
“Fellows,” he cried, “there’s somebody in here! Who’ll follow me?”
The faithful Texas sprang to his side, and the rest followed, though trembling and quaking in every joint.
Mark was as much terrified as any of them, but he shook it off with a powerful effort and gazed resolutely about him.
“There’s no use having any nonsense about this!” he exclaimed. “None of us believes in ghosts, so what’s the use of being scared. There’s only one thing possible, there’s somebody in here.”
“Who’s afraid?” cried Texas.
“Yes,” echoed Dewey, boldly. “Who’s afraid. I’m not.”
“Who-who-who’s af-f-f-fraid-d?” chattered Indian.
To tell the truth, they were all very much afraid and were not at all successful in hiding it. The sound had been so weird and horrible. In such surroundings, it was small wonder that they stood in the center of the floor and trembled.
Mark racked his brain to think what the strange development could mean. He hit on a solution at last which for a moment he thought to be correct.
“By George!” he cried. “Fellows, I believe it was Bull Harris!”
The effect of that remark was instantaneous. All the plebes’ fear went out of them at the sound, and anger came in. Yes, yes, it must be Bull! The hated yearling knew of the cave, he and his three cronies alone. They had dared to come up here to fool them! Quick as a wink Texas clinched his fists and leaped forward.
“Come on,” he cried. “Wow! ef I git a holt o’ that feller I’ll make him wish I hadn’t.”
The rest had been no less prompt to follow Texas’ lead. They could hardly wait to bring the candle before they plunged into the dark passageway from out of which the sound had seemed to come. The Seven were just as mad as hops. The very idea of Bull’s daring to enter their cave, and trying to scare them out of it!
The arm of the cave into which they had gone took them completely out of sight from the main room. The flickering rays of the candle were speedily lost to view and the place grew black as night. And at the same instant, treading lightly across the carpet, stealing along with the silence and swiftness of an Indian, a crouching figure swept across the room and vanished in the recesses at the other side.
The plebes would have been frightened indeed had they been there to see it. For the figure was not that of Bull Harris.
It was an old, old man, with bent and stooping figure and a long white, flowing beard. There was a gleam of fury in his eyes, and in his hand he clutched a long, keen knife.
Of him the plebes saw nothing, for they were busily making their way through the passage. They were finding much in that to interest them.
Their journey was made with all slowness and caution, and with no little trembling, too. What might be in the black and secret recesses of this mysterious cave no one dared to guess. Pitfalls must be watched for at their feet, and wild animals—or yearlings—ahead.
The tunnel narrowed rapidly after a short distance, until the plebes could hardly walk erect. Peering in still further they could see that it got smaller and smaller still, so that hands and knees would soon be the order of the day. The lads hesitated; but a moment later, Mark, peering ahead, caught sight of something in the dim candlelight that made him spring quickly forward.
“By jingo!” he cried. “Fellows, they’ve had something to eat in here.”
The Seven stared in amazement—and some little indignation. The impudence of Bull! Yes, it certainly was true, for there was a still smoking fire, and scraps of food scattered about.
“Come ahead!” exclaimed Mark, quickly. “I believe we’ve got ’em trapped in here.”
Mark stooped and hurried away through the narrow passage.
“Say!” growled Texas, “if we do ketch ’em——!”
And with that dire threat he followed.
The journey came to a sudden end, however, a moment later. The tunnel broadened again into a sort of hollow dome, a little room. And in front was a wall of rock.
Mark gazed about him. There was nothing in the place apparently except a pile of rags in one corner. It was simply a bare cell of rock with nothing whatever beyond it. The plebes were “stumped,” as the phrase has it, for they had imagined they had their victims penned up.
“They’ve dodged us somehow,” said Mark. “Let’s go back and hunt again.”
Just then, however, another discovery was made, this time by the classic Parson. The Parson had the true scientific spirit of research, you must know; or what is known in newspaper circles as a “nose for news.” To put Parson Stanard where there was any possibility of acquiring new data on the subjects of geological formations and “stratiological eccentricities” was like putting a bloodhound on a fresh trail.
During the plebes’ whispered debate, the lanky and solemn scholar had been wandering around like a lion in a cage, peering at everything, punching and testing the rocks, even smelling them occasionally. And suddenly he gave vent to a cry of joy.
“Yea, by Zeus!” he muttered. “By the seven gates of Thebes and the seven hills of Rome! I knew it!”
“What’s the matter?” cried the others.
“By Zeus!” he cried. “Fellow citizens of Athens, I have discovered another entrance to the cave!”
The others stared at him in incredulity and amazement.
“Another entrance!” they echoed. “Where?”
By way of answer the learned Parson seized Mark by the shoulder and forced him over toward what seemed to be the blank wall of rock in front of them. Stanard pointed and Mark followed the direction of his finger and understood. A faint chink in the rock where the bright light of day strayed in told the story with all possible plainness.
“It leads out into the open,” Mark admitted, after a moment’s thought. “Any one can see that. But how do you know it is an entrance?”
“It is evident to the most superficial observation,” replied the Parson, “that the walls of the cave are of a different sort from the rock we have before us. The former is a species of sandstone of quaternary origin, while the latter is a kind of granite technically known——”
“What has that got to do with it?” growled Texas.
“Yes, yes!” roared the rest. “Go on!”
“I am going,” said Stanard. “Ahem! By Zeus! As I was about to remark, this bowlder, for such it is, is evidently of glacial origin and therefore——”
“For heaven’s sake!” cried Mark, laughing in spite of himself. “Do you mean to say that it’s a loose rock?”
“Precisely,” said the geologist. “That is to say——”
Then the matter came to an abrupt end. Texas, who had been dancing about with impatience, caught the meaning of the words “loose,” and with a bound flung himself against the bowlder.
To his amazement it rolled easily away, leaving just room for a man to crawl out.
Beyond lay the woods and the sky and the river! It was indeed another entrance to the cave!