When Stayford had explained to the boys how to construct the trap he pushed on toward the place which Jerry had appointed for their meeting.
"Ha, ha!" he laughed to himself, as he walked along; "that was my plan, and it worked like one of Jerry's dead-falls."
It was indeed a good scheme to ascertain whether or not the boys would divulge the secret. No sooner had they left the cave than Jerry, who had already donned his hunting coat and cap, passing out into the forest by one of the secret entrances, and making a detour through the wood, reached the path about a mile up the river. Here he entertained the boys until Stayford could gain the path still farther up the Beech Fork. For this reason he pretended to look for the red-squirrel, and proposed to devour it whole if Owen succeeded in bringing it to the ground.
When Jerry and Stayford met they congratulated each other on the happy success of the ruse by which they had just tested the veracity of the two prisoners whom they had restored to liberty.
"They're all correct," said the trapper. "They ain't none of your gray foxes what one hound can ketch; but genuine red foxes, what can't be cornered by a whole pack."
"I watched them closely while I questioned them," said Stayford, "but not a word they uttered, nor any expression of their faces could give a clue to the fact that they were in the cave."
Returning to their underground home, the two men secured the rock door, threw themselves upon their beds of straw, and were soon fast asleep.
The boys hastened homeward, discussing excitedly their strange adventure so long as their way permitted them to go together, and even when their paths separated, Martin's following the river, and Owen's leading over the hills, their thoughts were much the same. Was there connected with that cave a secret which they did not know? Did this dark, weird, treacherous cavern shelter beneath its gloomy arches some strange occupant? They felt that there was a mystery in the history of the cave yet to be revealed.