They all listened, but could hear nothing except the cold wind sighing through some of the trees not far away.
“Let me finish the work for you, Tom,” suggested Paul, seeing that Tom Betts was pretty well exhausted from his labors.
“I guess I will, Paul, because I’m nearly tuckered out,” admitted the persistent worker, as he handed the implement over, and pushed back, though still remaining in the hole.
Paul was not very long in clearing away the last of the snow that clogged the entrance to the old bears’ den. They could then mark the line of the gaping hole that cleft the rock, and which served as an antechamber to the cavity that lay beyond.
“That does it, Paul,” said Jack, softly; though just why he spoke half under his breath he could not have explained if he had been asked, except that, somehow, it seemed as though they were very close to some sort of tragedy.
The shovel was put aside. It had done its part of the work, and could rest. And everybody prepared 192 to follow Paul as he pushed after the guide into the crevice leading to the cave.
The smell of wood smoke was now very strong, and all of them could catch it.
So long as the entrapped boys had a fire there was no fear that they would perish from the cold. Moreover, down under the rocks and the snow the atmosphere could hardly be anything as severe as in the open. Indeed Paul had been in many caves where the temperature remained about the same day in and day out, through the whole year.
Coming from the bewildering and dazzling snow fields it was little wonder that none of them could see plainly at the moment they started into the bears’ den. By degrees, as their eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness that held sway below, they would be able to distinguish objects, and make discoveries.
Stronger grew the pungent odor of smoke. It was not unpleasant at all, and to some of the scouts most welcome, bearing as it did a message of hope, and the assurance that things had not yet come to the last stretch.