He glanced below him. It seemed as if he was at the last of the ventilating openings for, further down, there were no glimmerings of daylight, which was fast waning. Then, as he looked, he caught the flickering of a torch, not far down. It waved to and fro, casting queer shadows on the walls of the shaft, and then the person holding it seemed coming up the ladder.

"Now there's going to be trouble," thought Fenn. "We can't pa.s.s on this thing. Either he's got to wait until I get down, or I'll have to go all the way back to the top. I wonder if I better yell to let him know I'm here? No, that wouldn't be just the thing. I'll try to slip around between the wall and the ladder, and, maybe, he'll pa.s.s me."

Fenn proceeded to put this rather risky plan into operation. Holding on by both hands to one of the projecting branches he endeavored to swing himself around. The man with the torch was coming nearer and nearer.

Suddenly Fenn's hold slipped. He tried to recover himself but without avail. The next moment his hands lost their grip and he went plunging down into the darkness below, faintly illuminated by the smoking torch.

Then he knew no more.

When Fenn came to his senses it was only with the utmost difficulty that he could recall what had happened. He had a hazy recollection of having been in some dark hole--then a light was seen--then he slipped--then came blackness and then--

He tried to raise himself from where he lay, and a rustling told him he was reclining on a bed of straw. By the light of a torch stuck in the earthen wall of what seemed to be a cavern, Fenn could make out the shadows of several men, grotesquely large and misshapen, moving about.

From the distance came a peculiar noise, as of machinery.

Fenn's brain cleared slowly, though from the ache in his head, he knew he must have had quite a fall. He raised himself on his elbow, and gradually came to a sitting position. He drew a long breath, and started to get up.

As he did so, he felt some one place his hands on his chest, and push him back, not rudely, but with enough firmness to indicate that he was to lie down. Instinctively he struggled against what seemed to him a dim shape in the half-darkness.

"Lie down," a man's voice commanded. "You'll be all right in a little while. You had quite a fall."

"What's the matter? Where am I? Who are you?" asked Fenn.

"That's all right now, sonny," was the reply in such soothing tones, as one sometimes uses toward a fretful child. "You're in safe hands."

"Has the kid woke up?" called a voice from the blackness beyond the circle of light cast by the torches.

"Yes," answered the man who had made Fenn lie down.

Following the words there was a sudden increase in the illumination of the cavern, and Fenn saw a big man approaching, carrying a torch. With him were several others. One of them had a rope.

"Are you--are you going to make me a prisoner?" asked Fenn, his heart sinking.

"That's what we are."

Just then another man flashed a torch in the boy's face. No sooner had he done so than he called out:

"Great Scott! If it isn't the very kid I chased!"

Fenn glanced quickly up and saw, standing before him, the man with the sinister face--the man who had pursued him at the elevator fire. Beside him was a man with a peculiar cast in one eye, and Fenn knew he was the fellow who had listened to the conversation of the chums in the railroad car.

CHAPTER XXV

AN UNEXPECTED MEETING

Along the trail, which they had thus suddenly come upon, fairly ran Frank, Ned and Bart. Now that they were sure Fenn was ahead of them, though they could not tell how long since he had pa.s.sed that way, they were anxious to find their chum as soon as possible.

"It looks as if Fenn was chasing the Chinese and the white man, instead of them being after him," suggested Ned.

"Unless they are leading him with a rope," remarked Frank. "In that case he would be marching behind."

"Well, I'll bet they'd have a fine time making Fenn march along with a rope on him," said Bart. "He'd lie down and make 'em drag him. That would be Fenn's way."

"Unless he's too sick to make any resistance," replied Frank, who seemed to take a gloomy view of it.

"Well, there's no good wasting time talking about it," declared Bart.

"What we want to do is to find Fenn. Then we'll know exactly how it was."

"That's right; save our breaths to make speed with," added Ned.

Though the boys were not lagging on the trail, they increased their pace until they were going along at a dog trot, which carried them over a considerable s.p.a.ce in a short time, yet was not too tiring. They caught occasional glimpses of the marks left by the feet of the Chinese and the white man, as well as prints of Fenn's shoes.

"There they go, up that hill!" exclaimed Ned, who, for the time being, was in the advance.

"Who? The men?" called Bart quickly.

"No, the footprints. Come on," and he led the way up the little hill, up which Fenn had hurried the day previous, with such disastrous results.

Fortunately the pace was beginning to tell on Ned, and, as he reached the summit, and started down the other side, he slowed up. It was to this circ.u.mstance that he avoided stepping right into the hole of the shaft, down which Fenn had taken that queer-sliding journey.

"Look here!" yelled Ned, so excitedly that his two companions fairly jumped up to gain his side, thinking he must have come upon either Fenn or one of the men. "Somebody has fallen down that hole!"

That was very evident, for the fresh earth on the edges, the scattered and torn clumps of fern, and the general disturbance about the mouth of the pit, showed that all too plainly.

"See!" suddenly exclaimed Bart. "There's his hat!" and, turning to one side he picked it up from the ground, where it had fallen when poor Fenn took his tumble. "This shows he was here."

"We were sure enough of that before," said Frank, "but it certainly does seem to indicate that Fenn went down there. I wonder whether he fell, or whether those men thrust him down?"

Bart threw himself, face downward, close to the edge of the hole. He looked carefully at the marks on the edges. Then he got up and began looking about in a circle. Finally, he walked back some distance down the hill.

"I have it!" he finally announced.

"All right, let's have it and see if we agree with you," spoke Ned.

"Fenn came up this hill all alone," declared Bart. "If you had looked closely enough you could see that the footprints of the Chinese and the white man go around the base of the hill to the right. Probably they made a turn, when Fenn wasn't looking. He thought they went up the hill.

He hurried after them, and stepped right into this trap. Probably it was covered over with leaves or gra.s.s, and he couldn't see it, until it was too late. That's my theory."

"And I believe you're right," declared Frank. "It sounds reasonable."

"Then the next question is; what are we going to do about it?" inquired Ned. "No use standing here discussing what happened, or how it happened.

What we want to do is to get busy and rescue Fenn."

"That's the way to talk," declared Frank.

"Wait a minute," suggested Bart. Once more he got down close to the hole, and peered into the depths.

"See anything?" asked Ned.