“Where did you find it?” asked Ned.
“There is a false back to that cupboard in the north wall,” Frank replied. “When I knocked on the boards they gave forth a hollow sound, and so I tore one away. Hence the opium. And there are pipes there, too—just such pipes as one sees in the joints on Pell street, in little old New York.”
“You remember what Jimmie said?” asked Ned.
“I remember a good many things the little rascal has said,” was the laughing reply. “He’s always saying something.”
“Well,” Ned continued, “the boy was right when he expressed his opinion of the heelless footprints in one word.”
“Chinks!” grinned Frank. “Of course!”
The boys now went over to the cupboard in the niche and began tearing away the boards. After a few had been displaced Ned stopped and began experimenting in fitting them in position again.
“What’s doing now?” demanded Frank.
“We must remove them so as to be able to return them as we found them before we leave,” Ned replied. “It is important that the inhabitants of this robber den do not know that we have discovered it.”
“Don’t you ever think they don’t know it right now,” Frank said. “We haven’t seen any of them since they rowed around the point, but they’re stirring about, just the same. We may see more of them before we get out of this cavern.”