He put out his hands, endeavoring to find something to grasp to stay his progress, and then he discovered the reason for his smooth pa.s.sage.

The walls of the curious slanting tunnel, in which he had been made an involuntary prisoner, were composed of smooth clay. Down them water was slowly dripping, from some subterranean spring, making the sides as smooth and slippery as gla.s.s.

Fenn tried in vain to dig his fingers into the walls, in order to stay his progress, but he only ran the risk of tearing his nails off, and he soon desisted. All he could do was to allow himself to be carried along by the force of gravity, and the incline of the tunnel was not so great as to make his progress dangerous.

"It's the stopping part I've got to worry about," thought poor Fenn. "I wonder what's at the end of all this?"

Suddenly, as he was sliding along, feet foremost, in the darkness, his outstretched right hand came in contact with something that caused him to start in terror. It was a round, thin slimy object, that seemed stretched out beside him.

"A snake!" he exclaimed. "I've fallen into a den of serpents!"

He drew his hand quickly away, fear and disgust overpowering him for a moment. Then the thing seemed to be at his left hand. This time, in spite of himself, his fingers closed around it.

"A rope! It's a rope!" he cried aloud, as he vainly tried to catch hold of it and stay his sliding downward. But the rope slipped from his fingers, and his journey down the curious shaft was unstayed.

"This must have been dug by men," thought Fenn. "I'll wager the smugglers had something to do with it. Why, maybe it's one of the ways they land their men. That's it! I must be sliding right down into the lake. They use the rope with which to pull themselves up the slippery tunnel."

This idea seemed feasible to him, and he made further efforts to grasp the rope, in order that he might stop and pull himself up, instead of being carried on into Lake Superior.

For that this was to be his fate he now feared, since, as near as he could tell, the tunnel sloped in that direction. But though he occasionally felt the rope, first on one side of him, and then on the other, he could not get a sufficient grasp on the slippery strands, covered as they were with clay, to check his progress.

"I guess I'm doomed to go to the bottom," he thought. "If I only fall into deep water it won't be so bad. I can swim out. But if I land on the rocks--"

Fenn did not like to think about it. In fact his heart was full of terror at his strange situation, and only his natural courage kept him from giving way to despair. But he was filled with a dogged determination to save himself if he could, even at the end.

Though it has taken quite a while to describe Fenn's queer mishap, it did not take him long to accomplish it. He was slipping along at considerable speed, being shunted from side to side as the tunnel widened or narrowed, but, on the whole, being carried onward and downward in a fairly straight line.

Suddenly the blackness was illuminated the least bit by a tiny point of light below and in front of him. It looked like an opening.

"There's daylight ahead," thought the boy. "That must be where the fresh air comes from," for he had noticed that the tunnel was not close, but that a current of air was circulating through it. Fenn was wrong as to the source of this supply, as he learned later, but he had little time to speculate on this matter, for, much sooner than he expected, he had reached the spot of the light.

He saw, suddenly looming before him, an opening that marked the end of the tunnel. The shaft gave a sharp upward turn and Fenn was shot up and out, just as are packages that are sent down those iron chutes from the sidewalk into store bas.e.m.e.nts.

A moment later the boy, covered with mud from head to foot, found himself on a narrow ledge on the face of a cliff overlooking Lake Superior. He lay, partly stunned for a moment, and blinking at the strong light into which he had come from the darkness of the shaft.

Below him rolled the great lake, on which he and his chums had so recently been sailing in the _Modoc_. Fenn arose to his feet, and gave a glance about him.

"It's the same place!" he murmured. "The same place where we saw the men who so mysteriously disappeared! I'm on the track of their secret!"

He looked at the ledge on which he stood. It was long and narrow, and, not far from where he was, he saw a partly-round opening, that seemed to be the mouth of another shaft, leading straight down.

"Well, more wonders!" exclaimed Fenn, walking toward it. As he did so, he was startled to see the head of a man emerge from the second shaft.

The fellow gave one look at Fenn and then, with a cry of warning to some one below, he disappeared.

Fenn, startled and somewhat alarmed, hesitated. He was on the brink of an odd discovery.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SEARCH

Following the finding of the Chinese b.u.t.ton, and Frank's conclusion that the smugglers had carried Fenn off, the three chums, back in camp, startled by the terror the thought gave them, stood looking at each other for several seconds. They did not quite know what to make of it.

"Do you really think the smugglers have him?" asked Ned, of Frank.

"Well, it certainly looks so. Fenn is gone, and this b.u.t.ton is evidence that some Chinese have been here."

"But might not Fenn be off in the woods somewhere, and the Chinese have paid a visit here while he was away?" asked Bart.

"Of course that's possible. But I don't believe Fenn, sick as he was, would remain away so long."

"Couldn't that bra.s.s b.u.t.ton come from some other garment than one worn by a Chinaman?" inquired Ned.

"It could, but for the fact that it has some Chinese characters stamped on the under side, where the shank is," and Frank showed his chums the queer marks, probably made by the Celestial manufacturer. "Then, here's another bit of evidence," and he pointed to the ground.

Ned and Bart looked. There, in the soft earth, they plainly saw several footprints, made by the peculiar, thick-soled sharp-pointed shoes the Chinese wear.

"They've been here all right," admitted Bart in a low voice. "What's to be done about it?"

"I think we ought to see if we can't find Fenn," declared Ned. "We ought to follow and see where these Chinese footsteps lead. Maybe Fenn is held a prisoner."

"That's what we ought to do," agreed Frank. "However, it is too late to do anything much now. It will soon be night. I think we'd better get something to eat, sleep as much as we can, and start off the first thing in the morning. Maybe we can trail the smugglers by following the Chinese footprints, and, in that way, we may find--Fenn."

Frank hesitated a bit over his chum's name, and there was a catch in his voice. The other boys, too, were somewhat affected.

"Oh, we'll find him all right," declared Ned, confidently, to cover up the little feeling he had manifested. "If those smugglers have him, why--we'll take him away from them, that's all."

"That's the way to talk!" exclaimed Frank. "Now let's get some grub.

What did we shoot all these ducks for?"

The chums soon had a meal ready, but, it must be confessed, the ducks did not taste as good as they expected they would. However, that was more because of their anxiety over Fenn, than from any defect in the birds or their cooking.

Morning came at last, after what the three Darewell boys thought was the longest night they had ever experienced. They only slept in dozes, and, every now and again, one of them would awake and get up, to see if there were any signs of the missing Fenn.

"Poor Stumpy," murmured Ned, on one occasion, when a crackling in the underbrush had deluded him into the belief that his chum had returned, but which disturbance was only caused by a prowling fox. "Poor Fenn! I hope he's in no danger!"

If he could have seen Fenn at that moment he would have had good reason for expressing that hope.

"Now for the trail!" exclaimed Bart when, after a hasty breakfast, the three boys, shouldering their guns, were ready to start. "Which way, Frank? You seem to have run across the track of these smugglers, and it's up to you to follow it. Lead on."

"I guess we'll have no difficulty in following the trail as far as it goes," remarked Frank. "When a Chinaman goes walking he leave a track that can't be duplicated by any other person or animal. Lucky it didn't rain in the night, for what tracks there are will still be plain. And we don't have to worry about a crowd walking over the place where they were. We're not troubled by many neighbors in these woods."

They started off with Frank in the lead, and he kept a careful watch for the Chinese footprints. At first they were easy to follow, as the ground was soft, and the queer cork-soled shoes had been indented deeply in the clay. But, after a time, the marks became so faint that, only here and there could they be distinguished.

Then it became necessary for Frank to station one of his chums at the place where the last step was seen, and prospect around, considerably in advance, until he picked up the next one.