“Gee-whiliker!” Dick ejaculated, removing his cap and wiping his brow. “Talk about buried treasure. If it’s as hard to get at as it is to get through this door, I——”
He was interrupted by the younger girl, who said: “Let’s pretend there is a treasure behind this door, and after all, maybe there is. Perhaps the air pilot is a smuggler of some kind and brings things here to hide.” Dories had made a suggestion which had not occurred to the boys.
“That’s so!” Dick agreed. “But if he gets into the next room, he must have an entrance around at the back of the ruin. No one has been through this door since the flood undermined the old house.”
Gib was still trying to open the stubborn door. He put his shoulder against it. “Come on, Dick, help a fellow, will you?” he sang out.
The boys pushed as hard as they could and the door moved just the least bit, then seemed to wedge in a way that no further assaults upon it could effect.
“Whizzle! What if that pilot feller is on the other side holdin’ it. What if he is?”
“But he couldn’t be,” Nann protested. “We all agreed long ago that he couldn’t be here because how could he arrive in the airplane without being heard?”
“I know what I’m a-goin’ to do,” Gib’s expression was determined. “I’m a-goin’ to smash a hole in that ol’ door and crawl through.”
Dick sprang to get a heavy stone from one of the crumbling side walls and Gib, having procured another, the two boys began a battering which soon resulted in a loud splintering sound and one of the heavy panels was crashed in.
Gib wiggled his way through and Dick handed him the searchlight. “Huh, we’re bright uns, we are!” came in a muffled voice from the other room. “Thar’s as much rubbish a holdin’ the door on this side as thar was on the other, but I, fer one, jest won’t move a stick o’ it.”