“Is this what you found?” cried Mr. Mortimer, with disgust. “This is intolerable—monstrous—outrageous! This—this—”
“No, I think it’s all right,” said Mr. Lawrence. “There is a mystery behind it, but when that mystery is cleared up, I think we shall find that this is all there is left.”
“I guess the boys didn’t see it,” Will observed, “or else they were afraid to meddle with it.”
“No,” said Uncle Dick, “a boy has more honesty than most people imagine. Well, Will, what there is, is yours. Take it, Will; it won’t fill more than one pocket; but I wish, for your sake, it were a fortune indeed.”
“If I hadn’t left these inside doors open, the boys wouldn’t have been able to explore these two rooms,” Will presently remarked. “Now, I wonder whether they found those hens and chickens! I didn’t, but I didn’t look for them.”
“‘Hens and chickens!’” growled Mr. Mortimer. “What’s the matter now, Will?”
“Why, Henry said the demon—I—I mean my uncle—had lots of hens and chickens here, and I heard them clucking several times while I was in the cave; but I never saw’ a scratch of them.”
“Perhaps the young explorers made away with them,” Uncle Dick suggested.
“No, uncle, they found their way here only because I had left the concealed doors open,” Will said. “I guess the hens are some place else.”
“We don’t know how many hidden chambers there may be here, nor what secrets they may hold,” Mr. Mortimer sighed despairingly.