"The good Lord only knows!" replied George. "Tommy and Sandy can get into more different kinds of trouble in less time than any other boys on the face of the earth. They're the original lookers for trouble!"
"Do you suppose they've got lost in the mine?" asked Will.
"It may be worse than that!"' cried George. "They may have butted into some of the people the caretaker indirectly referred to last night."
"He did speak of strange noises and mysterious lights, didn't he?"
"He certainly did, and I've got a hunch that Sandy and Tommy have butted into some hostile interests.
"It does seem as if they would be back by this time unless they were in trouble!"
The boys prepared an elaborate breakfast in the hope that Tommy and Sandy, who would be sure to be hungry, would return in time to partake of it. A dozen times during the meal they walked back to the shaft opening and looked anxiously down into the dark bowels of the mine.
"Those fellows are always getting into trouble," Will said, rather crossly, as he stood looking down. "They have a way of running into most of their dangers at night, too. It was the same up on Lake Superior, the same in the snake-haunted Everglades of Florida; the same on the Rocky Mountains, and the same in the Hudson Bay country."
"They sure do keep things moving," grinned George.
"I think," Will suggested after a time, "that we'd better find Canfield and get his advice before we do anything in the way of setting up a search. I hate to admit that two members of our party got into a scrape on the same night we struck the mine, but I guess there's, no way out of it."