"It's all right with me," declared Glen. "Now's as good as any time. We'll get our blankets and tell your father we will be at camp in time for breakfast."
When a couple of boys have a great secret which they have just discovered they are likely to overdo the secrecy of it. Glen and Apple made a wide detour through the fields and when they at last approached the Ice Box it was from an entirely different angle. Taking warning from the exposure of the Indian they took off their clothes in the shelter of some bushes and made a quick rush into the water.
"Be careful, now," warned Apple. "It's cold as ice and swift as the rapids. Must be some big springs around here."
But Glen was always at home in the water and needed no warning.
"Here it is, I'll bet," he cried. "Just under the ledge, you see. The opening's only about two feet wide and the space above water to the ledge isn't more than a foot and a half. That's why it's all covered up when the water's high. Come on. Let me go first."
Once inside this narrow passage they were indeed in a cave. For a few feet around the small opening daylight shone dimly in, but it was lost in impenetrable gloom above and to the rear. A mass of something dense loomed in front of them and Apple swimming boldly up declared, it to be a pile of stone.
"It's the heap stone the Indian spoke about, Brick," he shouted. "We've sure found it. Let's go back and get some lanterns and things."
Out in the broad light of day the romance did not seem quite so absolutely sure, and the nearer they drew to the camp the less positive did they become about their discovery.
"We wouldn't like the camp to have the laugh on us like they did on Matt," admitted Apple. "I guess we'd better make sure before we have very much to say about it."
"I reckon we had," Glen agreed. "We can keep it to ourselves for awhile without anybody carrying it away. That Indian couldn't carry it very far by himself. Once we are sure, then we can tell the whole camp. Wish we could find Chick-chick. We could tell him right now."