CHAPTER VIII

A QUEER HIDING PLACE

When Jimmie turned on the searchlight in the cavern, he half expected to see the hostile face of one of the half-breeds. Instead, the light revealed Ned, standing in an attitude of defense, a stone of good size balanced in each hand. The light went out instantly.

The situation was now doubly alarming, it being well-known to the outlaws that Ned was at liberty somewhere within the cavern. It was certain that they would soon enter the place in full force, with plenty of light, in which case it seemed that both boys would surely be discovered.

Still, so great was the joy of the boys at the unexpected meeting, that, in spite of the general peril of the situation, they seized each other like baby bears and danced madly about.

“Where did you come from, Jimmie?” demanded Ned, still breathless.

“Oh, I was invited to this part of the country,” the boy replied, “and came in here by accident. And so, then,” he continued, “that message was a fake one after all!”

“Yes, it was a fake message, of course, because you boys never sent it,” laughed Ned, “but we mustn’t stop here to explain matters,” he continued. “Those fellows will be in here thicker than bees around honey in a short time, and we must find some way of eluding them.”

“I know the way out!” Jimmie answered. “There’s a long passage leading to a gorge on the side of the mountain, and if we can get up to that, we can slip away without any one knowing anything about it.”

“I’m afraid the outlaws know and are guarding all the entrances,” Ned answered.

“Well, if they know this one, they don’t use it,” Jimmie insisted, “because the elevator isn’t working, and there isn’t any staircase, and I came near breaking my neck tumbling down a chute from the passage into the next room. I believe we can make a sneak that way!”

“We may as well try,” Ned agreed, “for we can gain nothing by remaining inactive. Turn on your light, and we’ll make a break for the place where you got your tumble.”

“Is it safe to turn on the light?” asked Jimmie.

“It is safer now than it will be in a few minutes,” Ned answered.

“What’s the answer to that?” demanded Jimmie.

“Why, the outlaws are doubtless collecting their forces now, and in a very short time they’ll be rummaging every nook and corner of this hole in the ground. We certainly can’t show a light after they get in here.”

“I should have known that!” Jimmie exclaimed. “I think I’m getting pretty dense, anyhow. Say, Ned,” the boy went on, “is it absolutely necessary for us to get captured, and tied up, and imprisoned, and shut up in some old hole, every time we go out on a vacation trip?”

“You can’t go out looking for adventures and have things come your way all the time,” suggested Ned. “Now, turn on your light,” he continued, “and we’ll make a quick break for the passage by which you entered. The minute you see the passage, turn out your light and we’ll find our way in the dark.”

“I’m afraid we’ll need wings to get up into the passage,” Jimmie suggested. “It seems to me that I fell far enough to hit the pavement from the top of Madison Square Garden.”

“Well, get to going!” urged Ned. “Get a move on! For all we know they may be lurking around here now.”

Jimmie switched on the light, whirled it over the dilapidated and rotting furniture for an instant, then shot into the next chamber, and from that into a by-passage by way of which he had entered. The floor of this by-passage stood at an angle of about fifty degrees, and the boys were preparing to undertake the climb when shouts came from the rear, and a great light filled the room they had just left.

“We can never get up there now!” Ned whispered. “We’ve got to take a run for it!”

“Huh!” returned Jimmie, “we can run only around in a circle, and there’s enough of them to wear us out in a few minutes. What we’ve got to do right now is to find a hiding place!”

At great risk of discovery, Ned seized the flashlight and pressed the spring. The illumination showed a moldy chamber with water dripping from the walls in places.

At some distant day the chamber had evidently been occupied by human beings, for a great fire-place was cut in the rock at one end, and there were niches in the wall which had doubtless been used for storage. The floor was smooth, showing the work of human hands.

“Get onto the fire-place!” whispered Jimmie. “Where do you suppose the smoke goes? There’s no chimney on the mountain.”

“Probably it escapes through some opening in the rock,” Ned answered.

“Do you suppose,” Jimmie asked, “that the smoke vent is large enough for us to hide in?”

Before the words were out of the boy’s mouth, Ned was making toward the fireplace. The light was out now, but Jimmie had no difficulty in following the boy in the darkness.

“Ned!” he called softly in a moment.

“Come on up!” whispered Ned.

“Turn on the light, then,” Jimmie advised.

Ned switched on the electric, but kept it inside the chimney into which he had climbed. Only a faint radiance reached the opening below.

“Give me your hand,” whispered Ned, “and I’ll give you a lift.”

The sound of voices and footsteps now echoed loudly through the cavern. Lights were flashing here and there, and when Jimmie at last found himself inside the chimney, he knew that the very room he had recently left was being occupied by the outlaws.

The electric light was out again, and the boy groped with his hands in the darkness. Much to his surprise they failed to locate his chum.

“Ned!” he called softly. “Where are you hiding?”

Jimmie heard a chuckle in the darkness and felt a hand on his shoulder. Then Ned whispered in his ear:

“I guess I’ve stumbled on one of the hidden cells of the mission!” he said. “Anyway there’s a hole leading out of this chimney that’s big enough to keep house in.”

“We’ll be finding a train of cars and an East river ferryboat next,” Jimmie chuckled. “We always do find something when we go away from camp. If we don’t find anything else, we find trouble.”

It was thought safe, now, to turn on the electric light. The rays showed a room perhaps twelve feet in size with furniture and furnishings of the description of those in the chamber below. Although the apartment seemed to be somewhere near the center of a lofty finger of rock which lifted from the eastern slope of the mountain, the air was remarkably fresh and pure.

“There’s an opening somewhere,” Ned suggested. “A shut-in room like this would asphyxiate one if there were no ventilation.”

“Then I think we’d better be finding it!” Jimmie advised. “Just listen to those fellows chewing the rag in the room we recently left!”

The boys remained perfectly silent, then, and listened. There seemed to be several men in the chamber below, and two were talking in angry tones. There were plenty of torches below, too, for the red flare and the stink of them came into the boys’ hiding place by way of the fire-niche below. This is what the boys heard:

“You can see for yourself, Huga,” a voice which Ned recognized as that of Toombs, was saying, “that the boy is not here.”

“But I am certain I heard footsteps running in this direction when I stood in the darkness before you men came in!” Huga answered. “He must be in this chamber somewhere.”

“Look for yourself!” Toombs advised crossly.

“Isn’t there some hiding place in the walls?” asked Huga.

Ned nudged Jimmie as they heard this, and both moved farther back in the hiding place. It will be understood how intently they listened for the next sentence.

“You ought to know that,” Toombs answered; “you are supposed to know all about this old mission, while I am fresh from Wall street.”

“I have never heard of any secret passage or room in this part of the excavation,” the half-breed replied.

“Then stop arguing that the boy is here!” roared Toombs.

Huga made no reply, but the boys heard him poking about in the fireplace. Presently a light flashed into the chimney.

“He’s after us now all right!” whispered Jimmie.

“Keep still, you little dunce!” Ned said.

“If he sticks his head up here, soak him!” advised Jimmie.

“Don’t you think I won’t,” Ned returned.

But Huga did not enter the huge old fireplace at all. When he flashed his light into the chimney he saw only straight up, and the vertical passage from the fire-flue was too small for even a small cat to negotiate.

The chamber into which the boys had found their way was directly at the back of the flue, and might have been seen by a more careful man. The boys chuckled as the half-breed turned away.

In a few minutes the sounds of pursuit ceased entirely. Lights no longer flashed about the room, creating a faint mist in the fireplace below. Still the boys were not certain that the outlaws had abandoned the hunt.

“Say, Ned,” Jimmie whispered, directly, poking Ned in the ribs, “you didn’t bring one of those bear steaks with you, did you?”

“Why, Jimmie,” Ned said in pretended amazement, “you’re not getting hungry, are you? I’m astonished at that!”

“Hungry!” repeated the boy. “I feel as if I could eat my way through this rock like a mouse eats through cheese! And I could drink a barrel of water. There never was such a thirst.”

“Well,” Ned suggested, “we’d better wait here a little while, until things get quieted down, and then make a break for the passage.”

“All right,” Jimmie said with an air of resignation, “I’ll crawl back here in the corner and try to imagine that I’m in charge of a pie wagon on Third avenue. Perhaps I can dream a pie or two!”

The boy leaned back in an angle of the chamber and prepared to continue the discussion regarding the different kinds of pies sold at the old Williams street corner. As he did so, the support of his back gave way, his heels flew up in the air, and he tumbled all of a heap into a passage which seemed to begin at that corner of the room.

Hearing the fall and the exclamation of impatience which came from the boy’s lips, Ned turned on the electric and saw Jimmie lying on his back in a tunnel probably a yard in size each way. There were plenty of indications that the tunnel had been cut through solid rock.

As far as Ned could see; that is, as far as the eye of the electric carried; there were no breaks in it. Directly a chill breeze blew in from the opening, and the boy knew that the passage touched the surface of the mountain not far away.

“Je-rusalem!” shouted Jimmie, “hold up the light and let me see if I’m all here. That’s the second tumble I’ve got in this consarned old hole today.”

“If every tumble you get in life brings such results as this,” Ned declared, “you ought to go around the world looking for tumbles!”

“They hurt, just the same!” Jimmie declared, rubbing the back of his head. “I got an awful bump on my coco!”

“Well, crowd along!” advised Ned.

“Crowd along?” repeated Jimmie. “What for?”

“Use your nose,” advised Ned.

Jimmie sniffed elaborately and hit Ned a resounding whack on the back. Then he sat down on the bottom of the passage.

“Say, Ned, look here!” he said. “When we got into this scrape, we didn’t look for any old Franciscan monks to help us out, did we? Two or three hundred years ago, when they dug this passage through the rock, they hadn’t any idea they were digging it for us, had they?”

“This is a mysterious world,” Ned answered. “It seems to be unnecessary for us to plan any mode of escape. The wise old chap who formed the Franciscan order in Europe, hundreds of years ago, prepared the way of escape for us!”

“That’s what he did!” answered Jimmie. “And I wish he had gone a little farther and prepared a good fat meat pie for us.”

“Jimmie,” Ned chuckled, “some day you’ll get into a corner where you won’t get anything to eat for a week. I never knew a boy who thought so much of his stomach as you do!”

“May the day be long delayed!” laughed Jimmie.

“Well, crawl along!” Ned advised, “and I’ll see if I can get this slab of stone you pushed out back in its place.”

It was by no means a difficult task to replace the stone, as it was thin and had been nicely fitted into the opening. In a short time the boys, proceeding mostly on their hands and knees, came to the end of the tunnel and looked out over a valley tucked in between two great summits.

The snow-line was not far away and the air was cold, notwithstanding the direct rays of the sun.

There was no one in sight, no moving object anywhere, as the boys paused at the mouth of the passage and gazed about. Judging from the location of the sun, they were looking straight west.

“Now,” Ned said after a pause, “if we follow this little valley straight to the south, we’ll come out somewhere near our camp.”

“Yes,” Jimmie answered, “I have a pious notion that our brownstone front is carved into the face of a continuation of that ridge on the other side of the little valley.”

“Perhaps we’ll find the Boy Scout messenger at the camp,” Ned suggested.

“If we do,” Jimmie declared, “I’ll change his face for him!”

“I can’t understand the fellow,” Ned admitted.

“Gee!” cried Jimmie, “He came out into the woods and told Frank and I to beat it, then went up into the camp and led you into the clutches of these outlaws. If I had his head in chancery right now, I’d ‘beat it’, all right! He ought to get a thousand years!”

“I hope the boys are all safe,” said Ned.

Jimmie told his chum of the arrival of Gilroy, and then the two boys hastened toward the camp.

“The outlaws were discussing the advisability of taking all the boys into their care,” Ned said, as they hustled along, “so I’m afraid they’ve been there and taken the lads by surprise.”