AN AMAZING OCCURRENCE
BOB was on his feet again ere the dust had settled in the room.
"Don't be alarmed," he cried. "There is no danger so long as you keep
away from that partition. That is where the trouble lies."
"Where--where is the hammer?" cried Grace.
Stevens stepped forward and looked for the maul on the floor near the
baseboard, but finally glanced up with a perplexed expression in his
eyes.
"The maul has disappeared, too," he said.
There was a gasp following this announcement. But the young man was not
disturbed.
"I understand a little of what all this means," he said. "The maul has
gone. If someone will get me an axe I will chop down this partition near
where I struck it with the maul."
"Is there some secret there?" whispered Mr. Presby over Bob's shoulder.
The young man nodded.
"Yes. I have an idea what it is. However, we shall see."
When the axe was brought he chose his location with some care, then
began chopping away, swinging the axe in a manner that showed him to be
no novice at that sort of work. The axe went through the partition soon
after that. Using the back of the tool, he began smashing in the boards,
here and there employing the blade to cut through a scantling or a
brace. Soon after he had laid open a dark recess behind the partition.
Tom pushed forward and was about to crawl in when the young man stopped
him.
"Better be careful, young man! That may be a pitfall, and I suspect that
it is."
The others were too amazed to speak. Still another secret in the old
house had been revealed. But the sudden disappearance of the maul was
still unexplained, though Stevens had his own idea about this. He began
cutting further. A tremendous crash followed a moment of chopping. He
sprang back to await developments. There were none.
"There, I think I have drawn the monster's teeth," he said, reaching for
a lantern. "One of you will please hold another lantern at the entrance
here. I may need help."
Ruth Stuart snatched a lantern from one of the countrymen and stepped
promptly up beside the young man. He nodded.
"Do not try to follow me in here unless I tell you to. I must first find
out what is in here."
"Do you think they are there?" she asked in a half whisper.
"Yes. Probably below somewhere," he answered, thrusting the lantern
ahead of him and crawling into the opening he had made.
Bob found himself in a narrow chamber formed by a gable that had been
shut off and enclosed by the partition. He did not trouble himself at
that moment to investigate the strangeness of the disappearance of his
maul. Instead, he began going over the little room cautiously. The light
from his lantern soon revealed a hole in the floor about a yard square.
"Don't lean against that partition on your life," he called. Those near
the entrance to the gable apartment drew back a little. They gazed at
the apparently solid wall to the left of the hole, in respectful
silence. Bob lowered his lantern into the hole and peered in. It
appeared to extend down a long distance. A trap door that evidently was
intended to cover the opening, lay to one side of the opening. As he
peered in he saw that the opening revealed a bricked-in shaft.
"A chimney, as I live!" he exclaimed. Then he raised his voice in a
long-drawn shout.
"Hello-o-o down there!" There was no response. Stevens called again. A
faint wail drifted up through the shaft. Ruth, at the panel, hearing it,
uttered a scream of joy.
"They're there! They're there!" she cried.
For the first time since his arrival at the house, Bob Stevens showed
traces of excitement in his face, but his voice was calm when he spoke.
"Get a rope, quickly. A long one," he commanded.
Ruth, Olive and Tommy crowded into the narrow opening, unable to
restrain their impatience longer.
"Be careful," warned Bob. "This floor doesn't seem to be very strong."
The three held their ground, however.
"Hello-o-o down there! Are you hurt?"
They were unable to distinguish the words of the reply, but it evidently
was made by Barbara.
"There's a ladder," exclaimed Tommy, starting to go down it. Stevens
hauled him back.
"Keep out. It looks shaky. I am going down there myself. That's why I
sent for a rope. I don't want to fall in, too. Men, I want you to stand
by to lend a hand on the rope. Keep it fairly taut, but don't hold me
back."
When all the arrangements had been made, Bob started down the ladder. He
had gone not more than four or five feet when he found that the ladder
extended no further. It appeared to have been broken off. He called to
the men to lower away. Finally his feet reached something soft. At first
the horrified thought came to him that it was the body of one of the
girls for whom he was in search. Instead, what he had found proved to be
a piece of an old mattress with a bundle of old clothes heaped on it.
This was something like seven feet from the opening through which he had
descended.
He heard a moan from beneath the heap of old garments. He tore them
feverishly aside. Mollie lay before him, pale and with eyes closed.
Stevens uttered a shout.
"I've got Miss Mollie. She is injured. Stand by to pull her up when I
give you the word," he directed in a tone of excitement. Quickly
securing the rope under her arms, he bade them haul away, he lifting the
girl as high as his arms would reach, then grasping her feet, lending
such assistance as possible in this way. She was quickly in the arms of
her friends, who bore her downstairs to her own room and set to work to
revive her.
Now came the next stage of Bob Stevens' work. He could not imagine where
Barbara could be. Just at this point he discovered a bend in the
supposed chimney. This he decided was in order to avoid some
obstruction on the second floor of the house. He found an opening in the
platform scarcely large enough to admit his own broad shoulders. There,
unmistakably was a ladder, made of thin strips of iron, bolted to the
chimney itself.
"I'm going further down," he shouted to those above. "Don't pull unless
I call upon you to do so. Are you down there, Miss Barbara?"
"Yes," came the answer. It sounded very far away. Bob knew that the
young woman must be a great distance below him, or else there was
another bend in the chimney that shut off the sound of her voice.
Perhaps, too, there was another landing. One might expect to meet with
anything in this house of mysteries.
"The other one is all right," yelled the young man to those above. "Keep
up your courage, Miss Barbara. I will be with you as soon as I can get
down. Can you climb up?"
"No." He did not catch what followed. Bob was climbing down the narrow
ladder, prudently keeping the rope about his waist in case the ladder
should give way. He carried the lantern with him on his descent, which
he made with considerable caution. He feared that were he to dislodge a
brick or a section of the ladder, it might fall on the girl below and
seriously injure her. Why she should be so far below the narrow
platform where he had found Mollie Thurston he did not pause to ask
himself. The urgent work of the moment was to get Barbara out as quickly
as possible.
"Is there no end to this?" muttered the young man. He figured that he
must be somewhere in the vicinity of the cellar. Barbara's voice, now
strong and clear, halted him suddenly.
"Be careful," she warned. "The ladder doesn't reach all the way down.
You will fall if you don't step carefully."
"Where are you?" he cried. "Goodness, I'm glad to hear your voice! I
feared you had been killed."
"I don't know how this happened. I am down here. That is all I can tell
you about it."
Stevens had reached the end of the ladder by this time. He lowered his
lantern, directing her to take it from the rope, then observing that he
was not more than half a dozen feet from the bottom, he dropped lightly
down beside her.
"Did you fall down here?" he asked.
"The last several feet I did," she answered. Bab was pale, but her eyes
were bright.
"Then how did you get down this far? Didn't the landing stop you?"
questioned the young man while looping the rope under Barbara's arms.
"Yes, the landing stopped me. I thought I surely had been killed, but
after a little I pulled myself together and screamed for help. I guess
no one heard me."
"They were excited. The house is in an uproar. Your sister is in the
hands of her friends. I think she will be all right."
"My sister?" questioned Bab, opening her eyes wide.
"Yes. Didn't you know she fell in, too?"
"Tell me--was she--how did it happen?" demanded Bab, all in one voice.
"Oh, it was awful! Mollie fell in, you say?"
"Yes. I got her out with the help of the others. You haven't answered my
question. Why did you come on down here?"
"I thought there might be an opening at the bottom. This chimney was
intended to be used for climbing. Hurry. I want to see Mollie."
Barbara was in a fever of excitement. She could not see why she
shouldn't climb the rope. Stevens advised her to calm herself, saying
that when she reached the ladder she might climb, but not to cast off
the rope.
"When you reach the top tell them to lower the rope again, so I can get
out."
Barbara suddenly collected herself.
"Oh, forgive me for my thoughtlessness. You go on up. I can come
later."
Bob Stevens merely smiled, then raised his voice in a shout to the men
to pull up. He lifted Bab up with apparent ease, for he was a muscular
young man. The rope began to move up slowly. He helped Barbara until she
had reached the ladder, then after seeing her safely on her way, and
when she was no longer visible, the young man picked up his lantern and
began to look about him.
The chimney reached clear to the bottom of the pit in which he was
standing. A short passage underground led off from the pit. He followed
it for about thirty yards, when it ended abruptly against a solid mound
of earth. Investigation showed that this earth had caved in, thus
blocking what had once been a long passage. Little particles of dirt
showered down on his head as he stepped carefully about, indicating that
the rest of the roof might cave in at any moment.
"The silence of the tomb," muttered Bob. "What a place in which to be
buried alive! I can imagine what that poor little girl must have
suffered in here without a light, not knowing whether she ever would be
found again. There's pluck for you. I know I should have been scared
stiff. What a house of mystery this is! If it were mine I would pull it
to pieces to satisfy my curiosity if for no other reason. But the
treasure? Can it be possible that we have stumbled upon the hiding place
of the real treasure? I'm going to investigate this place later on. Mr.
Presby's ancestors must have been regular woodchucks. At least they were
great burrowers. Hold on; there must have been some sort of stream
through here by the looks of the ground. The tunnel was already made.
All it needed was covering and filling. I begin to see. The families
used it for getting away when the Indians got too busy. But I hear the
rope. I want to examine that attic."
Bob held up his lantern to look for the rope when a ray from the lantern
glinted on something bright in a niche in the chimney near the base,
from where a brick had been pried out. He held the lantern closer, his
eyes grew large, then the young man gave a whoop that was heard far
above him in the attic.