"Looks like it, and this is a big cave."
There was no doubt about it. Frantically the boys tried passage after passage. Some ended at blank walls, and others led so far into the blackness that they were afraid, and turned back. They could not find the passage by which they had entered.
"Well, we certainly are up against it," sighed Will despondently, as he sat down on a rock, and watched his torch slowly burn. "What can we do?"
"Keep on hunting," replied Jed. "I wish we'd stayed in camp, then we wouldn't have had all this trouble. I wonder where Gabe is?"
"No telling. Maybe he's lost, too. I wish we'd stayed on the farm."
"Oh, don't say that. We'll be all right yet."
"I hope so. What's that?"
Will sprang to his feet. There came a noise from a dark corner of the cave. It sounded like some one shuffling along. Jed raised his torch and peered forward into the blackness. As he did so there came a menacing growl.
"It's a bear! A big bear!" he cried.
At the same moment the savage creature rushed at the two boys, who did not know which way to run.