“Hold on! Hold on!” yelled the man back of Fenn. “You’ll get hurt if you go any farther!”
“And I’ll get hurt if I go back,” whispered Fenn, pantingly.
“Stop! Stop!” cried another voice which the lad recognized as Dirkfell’s. “Come back! I’ll not harm you!”
“He’s too late with that promise,” Fenn thought.
A few seconds later he was at the opening of the cave. He fairly sprang through it, finding it large enough to give him passage standing upright. He leaped out, so glad was he to leave behind the terrors of the dark cave, and the mysterious men, who seemed so anxious to keep him a prisoner.
“Free!” Fenn almost shouted as he passed the edge of the opening. He was about to give an exultant cry, but it was choked on his lips.
For the opening was on the sheer edge of a cliff, without the semblance of a foothold beyond it, and below it there sparkled the blue waters of Lake Superior!
Fenn felt himself falling. He was launched through the air by his leap for liberty, and, a moment later, the lake had closed over his head!
Meanwhile Mr. Hayward, followed by his daughter, Frank, Bart and Ned was hurrying along, bent on discovering and rescuing Fenn. True, they did not know where he was, but Mr. Hayward had a clue he wished to follow. As he hastened along, he told the boys what it was.
“My daughter and I have been sort of living in the woods for the past week,” he said. “We have taken auto trips as far as the machine would go, and then have tramped the rest of the way. I want to see how my land is. It is some property I bought a good while ago, and which I never thought amounted to much. But I have a chance to sell it now, and I may dispose of it.