“We are; thirty-five or forty feet, at the very least.”
“For pity’s sake!” Dick gasped. “If that lake should take a running jump and break through on us——”
“Wait,” Larry broke in; “I’ve got an idea—and it’s a whaling big one! Gee!—if it will only work out ... but first we’ve got to find out where this leakage water is traveling to. Are you game to take a chance, Dick?”
“Game is the word,” said the general manager’s son; and it was no particular discredit to him if his voice shook a little.
“All right; come on.”
Larry had the candle now and he led the way to the passage down which the gathered rivulets were just beginning to trickle to disappear in some deeper depth.
Recalling the experiences of that nerve-sapping exploration afterward, they were both glad to remember that there had been no talk of backing out. There was ample chance for it, and plenty of good excuses, if either of them had been so minded. The passage, in which they could walk upright in the beginning, dwindled in places to squeeze holes through which they had to crawl like a pair of burrowing ground-hogs.
Also, there were many branchings, and at the first of these Larry began to uncoil his rope to leave it as a guide by means of which they might find their way back through the maze; though as for this, as he remarked, the trickling rill underfoot would serve if they shouldn’t happen to lose it in some bottomless pit on the way.
At the same time it was the rill that gave them the most uneasiness. Reason as they might about it, they could not rid themselves of the fear that it was growing larger; and if it were, if it should grow big enough, with the huge backed-up lake behind it, it might easily make retreat impossible; worse, still, it might drown them suddenly right where they were.