"I am not so sure about that," replied his chum. "I expected to find bones in the fort but we discovered none. Perhaps the builders abandoned this place even after going to so much trouble to fortify it."
"Maybe we can find something to throw light upon it in the other buildings," Walter remarked. "While you are finishing your dinner, I am going to see where that spring goes to."
Walter followed the little rivulet to where it disappeared in a small gully under a corner of the wall. Climbing the stones the lad dropped down lightly on the other side.
Charley finished his lunch, washed his hands at the spring, and resuming his seat in the doorway, leaned back upon one of the great pillars to wait for his chum. The air was soft and warm and the noises of the swamp stole to the tired lad's ears with a gentle lulling sound. His eyes slowly closed and his head dropped forward upon his breast and he slept.
Quickly the hours slipped away and the sun was getting low in the west, when Charley awoke. One glance at the declining sun brought him to his feet, anxiety and dread in his heart. What could have become of Walter? It took the thoroughly alarmed lad but a moment to reach the wall where his chum had disappeared. He swarmed up it like a monkey and dropped down on the other side. But no solid ground met his descending feet. Instead, he crashed through leafy boughs and landed in a tangled mass of vines. In the second before the vines gave way under his weight, Charley succeeded in grasping a limb and swinging himself in to the trunk of the tree where he found a safe resting-place between two branches. Below him yawned a gigantic pit, its edge hidden from view by the clustering trees.
"Walter," he called anxiously, "are you down there?"
"Yes," growled his chum's voice, "and I have been here for hours. You're a nice companion for a man when he gets in trouble."
"I fell asleep," confessed Charley, sheepishly.
"Well, don't sleep any longer," said his chum sharply. "Help me out of this, quick. It is awful down here."
"All right, be patient a minute and I will have you out," Charley answered as he climbed nimbly up his tree and reached the edge of the pit. A moment's search and he found what he wanted, a long, stout grape vine strong as a rope. He cut off a piece some forty feet in length, fastened one end to the tree, and dropped the other down into the pit. "You'll have to pull yourself out, Walt," he called.