“I don’t know. You see there was no time to examine the tracks below, and see whether the last ones headed in, or out. But we’ll soon learn that. Fire your gun as straight down into the stump as you can, Roger; while I keep mine ready to give him a shot if he comes out.”
“A good idea, Dick; and here goes!”
Roger pushed his long rifle into the hole as well as he could, and, aiming downward, pulled the trigger. The roar that followed was terrific in that confined space, and Roger hastily dragged his gun out, preparing to reload. He had in his early years been taught the first principle among hunters, that an empty gun is worse than none at all.
Dick was waiting, ready to send a bullet into the head of Bruin, did he but make his appearance; but, as nothing followed the report of his cousin’s rifle, he bent forward to look once more into the black aperture.
“Not at home, is he, Dick; or do you think I could have been lucky enough to have killed him by a chance shot?” demanded Roger, hopefully.
“Oh! no danger of that,” replied the other, laughingly. “It’s an empty den that we’ve run across, and the sooner we crawl inside the better.”
“Yes,” said Roger, “I felt a big splash of rain on my face then. But how far down do you think the hole goes, Dick? I hope not all the way to the roots of the old tree. How could we climb up again; and what a tumble it would be if we let go and dropped.”
For answer Dick dropped a piece of heavy bark into the opening, and bent his ear in an endeavor to tell from the sound just about how far it had to fall.
“I think it’s all right, Roger,” he said; “but to make sure I’m going to tie to this branch this piece of rope that I brought with me, and lower it inside. Then we can always have something to pull ourselves up with.”
“It takes you to think up such things,” was the comment of the other boy, who greatly admired his cousin’s thoughtfulness, though seldom able to shine in that same respect himself.