The boys now came to a chamber across the entrance to which a great mass of shale had been thrown when the fall from the roof took place.
At first they listened, fearful that they would hear voices of the lads they were in search of beyond the wall, possibly crushed under the weight of the of stone. Then they passed along for a short distance and peered into the chamber over the heap of refuse.
What they saw brought excited exclamations to their lips.
Jimmie and Dick stood in the interior of the chamber, hedged in by fallen debris. They were swinging their searchlights frantically from side to side, and, while the boys looked, they began the utterance of such yells as had never before been heard in that gloomy place.
"What's the trouble?" asked Elmer, showing his light at the narrow opening between the roof of the chamber and the pile of refuse.
"Oh, you're there, are you?" asked one of the boys. "We thought perhaps you'd gone back to New York and left us to starve to death."
"Well, you didn't starve, did you?" asked Elmer.
"Wow, wow, wow!" yelled Jimmie.
"Now, what is it?" asked Elmer.
"Rats!" yelled the boy. "Millions of rats! They're creeping out by the regiment from the cribbing where we were hidden!"