“That’s the spirit!” commended Ruth Carrier, the leader among the high-school girls. “We’ll start to toast some marshmallows for you.”
“Agreeable all around,” Kent nodded, and the boys took over the kitchen work, while the girls went back to the living room to toast the marshmallows.
Mr. Jordan and Kent did the washing, and the other boys dried the dishes. After a time they looked around for a pail to put scraps in, but there was none in the kitchen. Barry seized a lantern.
“I think I remember seeing one in the tool house,” he said, as he opened the back door. “I’ll be right back.”
The horses tied to the rail of the porch moved restlessly as he passed by them on his way across the board platform. Fodder had been brought for them, and as soon as the dishes were dried the boys planned to move the horses to a big shed back of the lodge which served as a combination barn and garage. Barry arrived at the tool house and went inside, peering around in the feeble light from the lamp. At the far end of the place he saw a tin can.
“There it is. I thought I remembered seeing it in here. This is just—— Ouch!”
He had tripped on something, and he flashed the light down to see what it was. He was close beside the bale of hay that stood there, and as he examined the floor he saw that it was slightly raised. This interested him, and he put his hand down and pulled the raised boards toward him. To his surprise several of them came up a few inches.
“What the dickens is this? Why——”
With a single motion of his arm he pushed the bale of hay aside and stared at the floor. A long trapdoor was revealed, and with trembling fingers he raised it, looking down into a deep well of darkness. A pair of wooden stairs ran down to the floor of a passage.
“An underground passage!” Barry breathed. “Now I’m beginning to see a few things!”