When the light was turned on it revealed a cavern at least twenty feet in width, extending back farther than the finger of light reached. The floor was level and smooth, apparently worn so by the passing of feet, and the walls held many shelves and openings, undoubtedly made by the hand of man.
“You see,” Jimmie whispered, “we’ve struck a robbers’ den, all right.”
“Had we better go in farther?” asked Carl.
“Of course!” answered Jimmie. “We’ll go in as far as we can. They’ll search the place, of course, and probably capture us in the end, but we’ll find out all we can about their nest before they get hold of us.”
“That’s a bet!” exclaimed Carl.
For a moment the boys argued as to whether they ought to visit the entrance before passing farther in, in order to ascertain exactly what the others were doing, but they finally decided not to do so. Had they followed Jimmie’s suggestion and looked out, they would have seen the Ann hovering over the valley just beyond the shelf where the camp-fire blazed.
The boys did not understand as they passed in why they were not followed by the others without loss of time. As the minutes passed and no lights or footsteps came from the entrance, they grew bolder and advanced by the light of the electric.
Had the boys known that the Ann was hovering over the scene they would have understood why their pursuers were too much interested to give them much of their attention at that time.
Perhaps fifty paces from the entrance the cavern was divided into two sections by a wall of rock which sprang up almost exactly in the center. The boys entered the one at the right and soon came upon a collection of barrels, casks and boxes.
“This must be the home of the Forty Thieves,” chuckled Jimmie.