“Yes! I intend to be very liberal with a certain college I think a lot of.”
“Hospitals is my hobby. You shall see.”
When the rafts were all ready they pushed them along the bank, and up to the mouth of the underground river.
“It is strange that the water does not move,” Ted said, looking puzzled. “It looks black and stagnant—as if it has been standing still a long time.”
“Do not let that trouble you. If it does not flow by to-morrow morning we shall paddle through the tunnel. We have been through it before and know the way. Besides, we are well supplied with flash-lights now. There is nothing to it, so why worry?”
They hewed short, broad-bladed paddles out of a cottonwood branch and carefully covered all the things they did not intend to take with them on the following day with broad palm-leaves, to protect them if it rained.
When dawn came, it found them on their rafts, paddling into the mouth of the cave. Once inside, Stanley switched on one of the lights that had been tied to the front of his raft, and the bright glare revealed a passage from ten to twenty feet wide with an uneven ceiling of jagged rock fifteen feet above their heads. Swarms of bats, frightened by the unusual visitors, left their hiding-places overhead, and with a flutter of wings dashed out of reach of the circle of light and disappeared.
“We have been going over half an hour now,” Ted said, looking at his watch. “Of course we have not made very good time, but we should be nearing the end. Can you see daylight ahead?”
“No! The opening is not in sight. But, what is this? Slow up so you won’t bump into me! The water seems to stop here.”
“Stop? There must be a bend in the river.”