"That could have been it. Well, I wandered over and asked what the dust was, and he said cool as you please that he didn't know. Probably a cave-in inside somewhere. Well, I put on an act about you two poor lads goin' in and he pretended to get excited, too. We went in, and I tell you it looked bad."
"Looked bad from our side, too," Rick said.
"I believe it. It was a job for machinery, all right. I hurried to the house and told Dr. Miller, and we phoned town, but the man with the scoop was out on a job. The Frostola man was still hangin' around when I started for town, and he hadn't moved when I got back. I did nothin' about him because I wanted to talk to you first. Took some time for the scoop to get there, but it certainly did the job."
"And we're mighty grateful," Rick told the farmer. Scotty echoed him.
"By the way, Mr. Belsely, was anything ever said about a second tunnel in the mine?" Rick asked.
The farmer considered. "Seems to me there was some mention about such a second tunnel, back when I was a boy, but I never heard about it since. I was born and brought up in this town, and I've never seen a sign of one. Course that doesn't mean there never was, because it might have fallen in."
Rick made a quick decision. "It didn't," he stated. He went on to tell Belsely what had happened the day before, pledging him to quiet for a few days at least to give them a chance to solve the puzzle that remained.
The farmer was delighted. "This will give me a tale to tell from now on! Once you say I'm free to talk, that is. Well, whaddaya know! That spring pipe has been there since Hector was a pup, and no one ever wondered about why it went in the hill sideways until you came along! Of course Collins must have known—him and Hilleboe, because they were the ones who replaced the pipe a few years back."
Rick remembered that Dr. Miller had spoken of the pipe being replaced. If Collins and Hilleboe had put in the new pipe, they may have driven it into the hill as Dr. Miller had said, but they had most certainly connected it with the vertical pipe inside the tunnel.
"Likely," Belsely agreed. "One more thing. We got a daylight ghost today. Saw him arrive by car about half an hour ago. He went up to the cornfield with a suitcase of some kind. Thought you'd like to know."