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.