Dick ran on down the road and came presently to Mine Creek, a little stream straggling along a rocky, weed-fringed bed. Near the ford, there was a pile of rotting logs and fallen stones that had once been a cabin. He left the road here, but he did not take Isham’s advice and go down Mine Creek. Instead, he went up stream, following a vague old path that presently crossed the creek and climbed a little hill. There was a small enclosure fenced in with rotting rails. In and around the enclosure were piles of earth and broken stones of such ancient date that saplings and even trees were growing on them.
Dick paused on the hilltop and looked around cautiously. No one was in sight; and all was still except for the chatter of squirrels and the drumming of woodpeckers. He jumped over the old fence and advanced to the edge of a well-like opening. Again he stopped and looked around. Then he took out of his pocket a ball of string. He tied a stone to one end of it; dropped the stone into the hole; played out his line until it rested on the bottom; and tied a knot in the string at the ground level.
Then he went into the woods and cut down a hickory sapling; he measured it with his line and cut it off at the top; and trimmed the branches, leaving stout prongs at intervals of about eighteen inches. Every now and then, he stopped and looked about, to make sure that he was not observed. After nearly an hour’s work, he finished an improvised ladder which he carried to the hole and slid over the edge. Then with a final sharp lookout, he descended.
He found himself in a pit about ten feet in diameter, heaped knee-deep with twigs and leaves swept there by winds of many winters. At one side there was an opening four feet wide and five or six feet high, the mouth of a tunnel that was roofed with logs supported on the sides by stout rough timbers.
Dick lighted his candle and started down this tunnel. But after a few steps he turned back, set down his candle, and pulled his ladder into the hole.
“Now,� he said. “Anybody’s welcome to look in here. I reckon they’ll not find little Dick.�
He picked up his candle and went along the tunnel. Now and then it dropped down abruptly, but there were timbers and old ladders that made the way passable. At last the tunnel broadened into a room about thirty feet square and high enough to stand upright in. This room also was roofed with logs and poles propped by stout timbers of white oak. Here and there were heaps of earth and stones and piles of rotting timbers; on the left side there was another tunnel.
Dick hesitated a minute, then he muttered: “I reckon I’ll find it here. But I’ll look around first.�
He followed the lower tunnel. It, too, slanted downward, but it was longer than the upper one and had several short spurs. It ended in a pit a dozen feet deep, that had an old ladder in it. Dick climbed down and looked around, then he went back to the main room and began examining the clay and stone between the supporting timbers.
“It certainly seems as if they would have left some,� he said earnestly to himself. “I ought to see little bits sparkling somewhere. If they were ever so little, they would show me where to work.�