“That is my idea,” Ned replied. “Have you been keeping a good lookout on the lake since you left it?” he added, turning to Pat.
“Some one of us has had eyes on it every minute,” was the satisfactory reply. “No one has returned, I’m sure.”
“You’re not thinking of going there to-night, are you?” asked Jack, with a slight shiver. “I wouldn’t go in there again, even in broad daylight, for a million dollars!”
“Pat is afraid of the sky, and Jack is afraid of the bowels of the earth!” laughed Frank. “We’ll have to tuck them both in bed before we can accomplish anything.”
“You may all go to bed but one,” Ned said, looking about the group, his eyes finally resting with a significant look on Frank’s excited face. “I want to look through that cavern before anything is taken out of it.”
Frank, knowing the meaning of the look he had received, went to his little tent for his revolver and his electric searchlight and was soon ready for the expedition. Jimmie looked sulky for a moment at being left out of the game, then his face brightened and he crawled into the tent that had been prepared for Nestor and himself and burst into a fit of laughter.
“I’ll show ’em!” he said, stuffing the blanket into his mouth to suppress the sound of his merriment. “I’ll teach ’em to put me in the discard.”
“Any wild animals up here?” asked Ned, as the two started away down the steep declivity.
“Two Black Bears and three Wolves!” called Jimmie, from his tent.
This was a reference to the Boy Scout Patrols to which the boys belonged. Frank and Jack were members of the famous Black Bear Patrol of New York City, while Ned, Pat and Jimmie were members of the Wolf Patrol.