"You ought to have been an undertaker, Tubby," exclaimed Merritt. "All you can think of is death and disaster and ghosts."
"Well, if you feel so good about it, you can have the first chance at going into one of those holes," parried Tubby.
"Very well, I will," rejoined Merritt, flushing. He privately did not much relish the idea of being the first to enter those long-untrod passageways. They looked dark and mysterious. An oppressive silence, too, hung about the boys, and half-unconsciously they had dropped their voices to a whisper, as they stood on the threshold of a civilization long passed to ashes.
"Go ahead," said Rob, coming to Merritt's side. Together the two boys, followed by the remainder of the newly recruited Boy Scouts, entered the rocky portal of the first of the dwellings.
A faint, musty smell puffed out in their faces.
"Smells like grandpa's cellar in the country," remarked Tubby, sniffing it.
"Where you used to swipe milk and apples, I suppose," laughed Merritt. Hollow echoes of his merriment went gurgling off down the dark passage, almost as if distant voices had taken them up and were repeating the joke over and over, till it died away in a tiny tinkle of a laugh, like the ghost of a baby's whisper.
"Ugh, I guess I won't laugh again," remarked Merritt.
"Say, Rob, how about a light?" asked Jeb Cotton suddenly.
"I've got a bit of candle here in my pocket," rejoined Rob. "I put it there the other night when Harry was developing some pictures. By the way, I wish you'd brought your camera, Harry."