“It lets us in toward where the door was,” Carl announced and he let himself down. “I say, Old Timer, you light another torch; we’d better each have one so we can see our way and not stumble over each other.”
“Rip snorting idea. Gosh all fishhooks, I’m hungry.”
“There is some grub. You look at the far end, you’ll find a sort of cache I made near the partition. I’ll see if I can get at the wires.” They started on the task but the debris cluttered the root-house so they were forced to proceed slowly, and several times they helped each other lift pieces of logs and rocks out of the way. Finally they were busy at their respective ends, Carl looking for exposed wires, and Jim trying to find some food that had escaped destruction. He had to do more chopping and hammering and, after several minutes he succeeded in clearing a wide section of the partition, but he didn’t locate the cache, so he went to work again, stopping once to kindle a fresh torch, and with its bright light he discovered that he had come through the dug-out to the second cellar.
“Having any luck?” Carl shouted.
“Not much,” he answered. “How about you?”
“I think I’ll have it in a minute,” replied Carl and he began to chop away, while Jim at the opposite end stepped into one of the older sections. Like the front of the place this too was wrecked, but not quite so badly as there had not been such a variety of things to scatter. However, one side was inaccessible, and although Jim saw nothing of special note on the other, he decided to examine it anyway. One thing which attracted his attention was a quantity of paper which looked as if some big books had been torn to bits, and some of their pages burned. Curious, Austin picked up some pieces, wondering from where they had come, then he found out, for right in front of him was an opening. Beyond the boy was a very small room which seemed to be lined with some sort of masonry. It was about seven feet square, and had projections which might have been used for shelves and seats. On the floor was more of the paper, like that which he had picked up outside, but in the poor light the boy could not be sure if it was blank or not.
“A queer joint,” he muttered, but a closer examination revealed nothing more, and there was no explanation as to why the small room was there or for what it had been used. The torch was beginning to burn close to his hand, so he made his way out. They could explore it later.
“Hey, Jim, I got it. Whoopee!”
“Good work.” Jim stuffed a few bits of the paper into his pocket and hurried to see what Summers had accomplished. He found that the deputy had unearthed a wire, had attached his instrument, and was listening for a response to his call. At last it came, then after a moment’s delay, Carl began to put in his message.
“I say, Sheriff, Arthur Gordon, the young fellow, was here. He got away in the Austin’s airplane—” There was a pause. “He blew up the place, but we’re all right, except Kramer, he was shot—” Another pause then Carl looked at Jim. “He wants to know how much gas was in the plane, how far it could go.” Austin frowned and thought hard, then he remembered that as he sat in the cock-pit with the pilot he had calculated that there wasn’t enough to carry them more than about sixty miles.