Jerry looked about without answering.
[CHAPTER XX]
THE PROFESSOR’S DILEMMA
Ned, Bob and Jerry were perhaps better fitted to attempt to solve a mystery of this kind than most young men would have been. They had traveled considerably, and had been in strange situations. More than once they had had to do with secret passageways and queer tunnels which they had discovered only after long, tiresome search.
“But I never saw anything quite so plain as this,” confessed Jerry, as he and his chums rode around the sides of the V-shaped gulch. It was shaped like a V in two ways. That is, the entrance was of that character and the sides sloped down from the top; though because of the width of the floor, as it might be called, of the gulch the outline of the elevation would better be represented by the letter U.
The opening of the gulch was perhaps half a mile in width, and the two sides were a mile or more long. They came together, gradually converging, until they formed the inside of a sharp wedge.
“Now the question,” said Jerry, “is whether or not there is an opening in this V; and, if so—where?”
“Now you’ve said it!” exclaimed Ned. “Where? Beats any problem in geometry I ever tackled.”