"Let's hope we're getting near the end of it."
The speaker was Joe. The truth is, the work was most tiring in its nature, and the spirits of the party were yielding to a very uneasy feeling, despite Joe's plausible theories that the end might be the reverse of pleasant. Should Ben Bolt, after all, be in hiding, well—the worst might happen.
Fixing the rope, they slipped down to the floor of the new cave. This, though not remarkable for beauty, was commodious enough, and had several outlets, in one of which there were indubitable evidences of the one-time presence of horses.
"Hello! here's the stable," cried Tom, who was first in this recess.
Sure enough in a vault-shaped but very roomy cavern, entered by a wide passage, was the robbers' stable. Several bundles of bush hay were stacked in one corner. A manure heap filled the other. All this pointed to a prolonged occupation. The idea of the robbers' presence had so materialised by these later evidences that the boys felt they might be confronted at any moment by the desperadoes.
"What'll we do, Joe?" said Tom. "Slip quietly back again?"
"Slip back again, after getting this far! Don't be frightened, Tom."
"I'm not; y'are yourself."
"Well," replied Joe, with a smile, "I'll not deny that I've felt like it more'n once. But there's one thing you've not noticed, chaps."
"What's that?" chorused the group.