Joe's reply was characteristic of the boy. He did not say a word, but worked his way through the bushes, and moved down the path with slow and cautious footsteps.
"That looks like business," whispered Bob, who lost not a moment in following his daring leader, Tom and Bugle being equally prompt to bring up the rear.
In this order they moved at a snail's pace toward the bottom of the gorge, stopping every few feet to listen, and all the while holding themselves in readiness to fight or run, as circumstances might seem to require, and to their great surprise they came to the foot of the path without encountering the least opposition, or hearing any alarming sound.
The deep silence that brooded over the gorge aroused their suspicions at once. What if the enemy had heard their approach, in spite of all the pains they had taken to keep them in ignorance of it, and prepared an ambush for them?
Joe thought of that, and the instant he found himself in the gorge, he moved promptly to one side, so that his companions could form in line of battle on his left—a manœuvre which they executed at double quick time.
"Great Scott! There's our cave," whispered Tom, who was so nearly overcome with amazement that he could scarcely speak plainly.
"And there's the ghost," chimed in Joe, pointing to a scarecrow in white raiment that lay prone on the rocks under a dense thicket. "Just take a look at its head! Those four loads of shot tore it almost to pieces."
But Tom and Bob did not stop to look at the ghost, for they were too busy taking notes of their surroundings while awaiting an onset from the owners of the camp. For it was a camp in which they found themselves, and everything in and about it seemed to indicate that it had been occupied for some length of time—two or three weeks at least.
Tom's cave proved, upon closer inspection, to be something else—a rude but very comfortable shelter, in the building of which nature's handiwork had been improved upon by the ingenuity of man. The slanting roof, which for ten feet or more from the entrance was quite high enough to permit a tall man to stand upright, was the bottom of a huge rock, firmly embedded in the face of the overhanging bluff. The walls of the cabin, or whatever you choose to call it, were made of evergreens, which had been piled against the rock, top downward, to shed the rain; and that one little thing showed to the experienced eyes of the boys that the men who lived there were old campers.