“Confound this dark,” he grumbled. “I could have sworn I had those matches.”
“Feel in your pockets, fellows,” commanded Bob sharply. Perhaps more than any of the other boys he realized the seriousness of their predicament. “Without a light we’re going to have a hard time getting out of here.”
But, feel as they would in every pocket they possessed, the boys were at last obliged to confess that they had not a match among them.
“Oh, we can remember the way back, all right,” said Herb, assuming a confidence he was very far from feeling. “All we have to do is follow this wall till we come to the end of it.”
“Yes,” said Bob with a touch of irony in his voice. “Then what?”
“Then we turn to the right—or was it the left?” faltered Herb, and Bob laughed.
“That’s just what I’d like to know,” he said, then went on, with sudden resolution in his tone: “There’s no use dodging the fact, fellows, that we’re in a pretty tight fix. If we get out of this black hole all right it will be more luck than anything else. However, the sooner we start trying the better.”
“If we go slowly and try to remember the way we came in, we’ll be all right,” said Joe. “I think I know the direction. Come on, follow me, fellows, and we all may be happy yet.”
They turned and slowly felt their way back along the damp earthy walls of the tunnel. They came to the end of it and then, following Joe’s advice, turned to the left.
Along this passageway they carefully felt their way, and, once more coming to the end of it, this time turned to the right. This was the way, Joe was confident, that they had come. All they needed to do was to follow their noses and they could not fail but be all right.