Though her explanation was hardly more easily understood than the girl's had been, Little Snap learned that soon after her family had stopped in the valley for a rest in their journey, her husband had discovered the entrance to a cavern, and curious to know where it led, he had crawled into the opening, but did not return.
Growing anxious over his long absence, her oldest boy, man grown, had followed his father, without giving any sign of his fate. In great excitement by this time, the second son had gone after his father and brother, and, like the others, nothing more had been seen or heard of him.
"It is terrible!" moaned the woman, wringing her hands. "They must be dead, and I am left here alone in this wilderness with these three little girls. Isn't there anything you can do?"
Little Snap had begun to examine the mouth of the cave, but as far as he could look in he could only see the rugged walls of the narrow passage leading gradually downward into the earth until lost in the darkness of the underground retreat.
The opening was about two by three feet, and had been concealed by overhanging bushes.
"I thought a bad smell kem from th' place," said the woman. "Perhaps they were stifled by gas. I have heard of sich things."
"Or been eat up by snakes," said Tag Raggles.
Thrusting his head and shoulders into the gloomy recess, Little Snap shouted at the top of his voice to the missing men, but only the hollow echoes of his cries, which seemed to reverberate from a long distance away, answered him.
"Thet ain't enny use, fer I hev hollered till I'm hoarse," declared Mrs. Raggles, the tears coursing down her thin cheeks, while she wrung her hands in the abandon of her grief. "Durst ye go in there, mister?"
"Yes; I am going," replied the postboy, preparing to enter the mysterious place.