Then men were now talking rapidly in French and they could only catch a word here and there, but they got enough to understand that they were puzzled to know what had become of them.
“Don’t move,” Bob whispered. “They are pretty close.”
For fully a half hour they could hear the men beating the woods all about them but their luck held and finally they must have given up the search for all was quiet. They waited another half hour to be sure that they were not coming back then Bob said:
“Now the question is are we going to be able to get out of here.”
It was pitch dark in the pit, the covering having sprung back into place as soon as they had dropped through. By feeling about they found that it was nearly circular and about eight feet in diameter, with perpendicular walls.
“How deep should you say this pit is,” Bob asked. “Not far from eight feet, I should judge.”
“Just my estimate. Now, you’d better get up on my shoulders and see if you can climb out.”
But the pit was a little deeper than they had thought, and standing on his brother’s shoulders, Jack found that he could barely touch the covering with the tips of his fingers.
“No go that way,” he announced as he jumped down.
“Then I’m afraid we’re in a pickle.”