“Starve, nothing!” Bob broke in. “Where do you get that stuff, anyway? We’re going to get out of this place if it takes all night to do it. Come on, let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“Nobody knows,” retorted Bob. “But anything’s better than standing still groaning about our luck.”
They started on again, groping their way along, the dank smell of earth and decaying wood in their nostrils and the black curtain of darkness before their eyes. It was no use. Every way they turned they were met with defeat.
“Might as well sit down and accept our awful fate,” said Herb dolefully. “I’ve barked more shins than I knew I had, and all for nothing——”
“Hey, you back there, come and see what I’ve found!”
It was Bob’s voice coming to them from a considerable distance up the tunnel. There was a ring of joyful elation in it that sent them stumbling frantically toward him.
“For the love of Pete, Bob!” yelled Joe, “what have you got?”
“A way out,” returned Bob, and, coming closer, the others could see before them the faint gray of twilight where Bob had pushed aside some intervening branches.
The boys pushed forward, stumbling over one another in their excitement.