“Here’s where the hermit has been living,” thought Tom, “and I guess the others have been hanging out here with him, too. But where are my chums?”
There was no sign of them in any of the rooms, and for a moment our hero feared it had all been some dream—even the sound of the hidden voices. And yet he knew it could not be a dream.
“Jack! Dick! Bert!” he called. “I’m here! Where are you?”
He paused, listening for an answer. It came, faint and as though from afar off.
“Here we are,” replied a voice. “We’re in some secret room. Listen while we pound on the wall, and that may guide you.”
There came a faint tapping. Tom strained his ears to listen. He advanced toward one wall, and then to another, until he had located the place where the sound was heard most plainly.
“I get you!” he cried. “The secret door must be somewhere around here. Here goes for a try at it.”
He looked over the wall for a sign of some secret spring, or something on which to press to make the door fly back, but he saw nothing. Then, realizing that he was losing valuable time, he raised the hatchet and began chopping. The chips and splinters flew in all directions, and at about the tenth blow something gave way.
Whether Tom hit the secret spring, or whether he broke the mechanism, he did not stop to find out. A door flew open, revealing a passage, and down this our hero ran. A second door confronted him—an ordinary door, fastened with a padlock on the outside. A few blows sufficed to break this, and a moment later Tom had burst into the secret room where his chums were prisoners.