THEY set out on the following morning. Elaborate preparations had been made for the undertaking and, so that they might have ample time undisturbed, Doris had begged her mother to allow her to picnic for the day with Sally, and not come back to the hotel for luncheon. As Mrs. Craig had come to have quite a high opinion of Sally, her judgment and knowledge of the river and vicinity, she felt no hesitation in trusting Doris to be safe with her.
Sally had provided the sandwiches and Doris was armed with fruit and candy and books to amuse Genevieve. In the bow of the boat Sally had stowed away a number of tools borrowed from her father’s boathouse. Altogether, the two girls felt as excited and mysterious and adventurous as could well be imagined.
“I wish we could have left Genevieve at home,” whispered Sally as they were embarking. “But there’s no one to take care of her for all day, so of course it was impossible. But I’m afraid she’s going to get awfully tired and restless while we’re working.”
“Oh, never you fear!” Doris encouraged her. “I’ve brought a few new picture-books and we’ll manage to keep her amused somehow.”
Once established in the cave, having settled Genevieve with a book, the girls set to work in earnest.
“I’m glad I thought to bring a dozen more candles,” said Sally. “We were down to the end of the last one. Now shall we begin on that corner at the extreme right-hand away from the door? That’s the likeliest place. I’ll measure a space around it twenty-one inches square.”
She measured off the space on the floor carefully with a folding ruler, while Doris stood over her watching with critical eyes. Then, having drawn the lines with a piece of chalk, Sally proceeded to begin on the sawing operation with one of her father’s old and somewhat rusty saws.
It was a heartbreakingly slow operation. Turn and turn about they worked away, encouraging each other with cheering remarks. The planks of the old Anne Arundel were very thick and astonishingly tough. At the end of an hour they had but one side of the square sawed through, and Genevieve was beginning to grow fractious. Then they planned it that while one worked, the other should amuse the youngest member of the party by talking, singing, and showing pictures to her.
This worked well for a time, and a second side at last was completed. By the time they reached the third, however, Genevieve flatly refused to remain in the cave another moment, so it was agreed that one of them should take her outside while the other remained within and sawed. This proved by far the best solution yet, as Genevieve very shortly fell asleep on the warm pine needles. They covered her with a shawl they had brought, and then both went back to the undertaking, of which they were now, unconfessedly, very weary.
It was shortly after the noon hour when the saw made its way through the fourth side of the square. In a hush of breathless expectation, they lifted the piece of timber, prepared for—who could tell what wondrous secret beneath it?