“Well,” Ned said, “we must take all the precautions needful, and if they are of no avail we shall not be to blame for what takes place. Even if they know that we have found the cavern, they need not know that we have penetrated into the office chamber. Now, draw that last board away carefully, and we’ll see what there is behind the false bottom.”
Frank drew the board away and was confronted by a long, low tunnel—an uncanny, narrow tunnel which had evidently been enlarged from a fault in the rock, and which appeared to penetrate far into the bulk of the mountain.
“See!” he cried. “The cupboard was built at the mouth of a cross fault in the rock, and there is no knowing what is behind it. Hold your flashlight higher and I’ll crawl in and look about.”
“Be careful,” Ned warned. “I have seen great holes at the bottom of tunnels like that. Don’t break your neck, or tumble down so far that I can’t fish you out.”
Frank grinned and crept through the opening made by the removal of the back of the closet. The place was not high enough for him to stand upright, and so he proceeded on hands and knees.
“This is a bedroom,” he shouted back to Ned. “There’s lots of ticks and blankets here.”
There was silence for a moment, and then the boy’s voice came from farther in the tunnel. “And here’s kegs of whisky,” he cried. “It smells like a Bowery saloon. Come on in!”
“I think one of us would better remain outside,” Ned replied. “I wouldn’t like to be surprised while in there and fastened in with rocks.”
Frank went on down the tunnel for some distance, calling back, now and then, to report his discoveries. There were weapons stored there, barrels of gasoline, packages of dynamite.
Then, for several long minutes, there came no voice from the interior, and Ned put his head inside and called out softly: