"Hello, professor!" shouted Clancy.
His voice echoed back and forth between the cliffs that rimmed the valley, but brought no answer.
"Not here!" he exclaimed, in a voice of profound disappointment.
"You really expected that yell would bring him?" Frank asked.
"I really did. Hang the luck! Say, Chip, I guess the theory won't hold water. The prof is still mysteriously absent, after all."
Merry had removed the lamp from his machine, and was standing in front of the old door. It was swinging by one rusty hinge, and he pushed it wide open.
"Look out for snakes, Chip!" warned Clancy.
Cautiously the boys pushed through the doorway and into the room that lay beyond. They looked around them, as Merry flashed the beam of light over the ruinous walls. Instinctively a gasp of surprise escaped them.
A cot had once stood at the side of the room, and there had been an oil stove in the place, and a shelf with some books, a chair, a trunk, and a few other odds and ends of primitive housekeeping. But now there was nothing. Every object had been cleaned out of the place and only the bare walls remained.
"Professor Borrodaile isn't here, Clan," said young Merriwell presently. "But he has been here, and made off with his plunder, that's plain. The question is where is the professor now?"