The River in the Mountain
As the boys crept down the rocky passage, they suddenly heard a curious noise in the distance. They stopped.
“What’s that noise?” asked Jack. It was a kind of rumbling, gurgling sound, sometimes loud and sometimes soft. The boys listened.
“I don’t know,” said Mike, at last. “Come on. Maybe we shall find out.”
On they went again, and very soon they discovered what the queer noise was. It was made by water! It was a waterfall in the mountain, a thing the children had not even thought of! They came out into a big cave, and at one end fell a great stream of water. The cave was damp and cold, and the boys shivered.
They went over to the curious waterfall. “I suppose the snow melts on the top of the mountain and the water finds its way down here,” said Jack, thoughtfully. “It must run through a rocky passage, something like the one we have just been in, and then, when the passage ends, the water tumbles down with that rumbling noise. I’m quite wet with the spray!”
The water fell steadily from a hole in the roof of the cave, where, as Jack said, there must be a tunnel or passage down which the water ran before it fell into the cave.
“Where does the water go to, I wonder?” said Mike. “It rushes off into that tunnel, look — and becomes a kind of river going through the mountain. I think it’s weird. I wonder if the robbers live in this cave — but there still seems to be no sign of them or their belongings. After all, if people live somewhere, even in a cave, they scatter a few belongings about!”
But there was nothing at all to be seen, and, as far as the boys could see, no way of getting out of the “waterfall cave,” as they called it.
They wandered round, looking for some outlet — but the water seemed to have found the only outlet — the tunnel down which it rushed after falling on to the channelled floor of the cave.