CHAPTER XIX

MORE THAN ONE WAY OUT

Pushing on, Jack made his way, followed by d.i.c.k, through a narrow pa.s.sage and out into an open s.p.a.ce where they could see the sky and a lot of trees and bushes above them with a rough path leading to the ground above.

"Well, we have found the way out, as well as the way in," said Jack, "and we might as well go out this way as to return the way we came."

"But can we find the boys?"

"Certainly. You have a pocket compa.s.s?"

"No, I have not."

"Well, I have one or had, and anyhow, I don't think we need it. It is daylight, and we know the direction we want to go. We should not have any trouble in finding our way back."

"How are you going to do it when there is no road that we know of?"

asked Percival, as Jack began making his way toward the top of the unnatural bowl in which they found themselves.

"I'll show you, d.i.c.k," Jack replied, pushing on, now using the stick to a.s.sist him and now getting along without it.

They reached the top at last, and then Jack began examining the trees about him, and presently said, pointing off into the woods:

"That is the south, and the boys are in that direction."

"How do you know it is the south?" asked Percival.

"Because the trees are more worn on this side, from frost and exposure.

Look on the other side and you will see a difference."

"Yes, I see it. The other side is smooth, while this is rough and of a different color. And that is the north side, is it? I have noticed trees looking like that, but did not think of settling direction by it."

"Yes, you can, and you will never go wrong. Come on, I think we can find the boys all right," and with a look at the sun, which could be seen above the treetops, Jack started off, Percival following.

Jack knew from the position of the sun and from the exposed side of the trees which way to go, and he pushed on in a straight line without deviating a foot to either side toward where he judged he would find the boys, keeping an eye for ledge rock and listening for any sounds which would tell him that he was nearing the other end of the cave.

In the meantime, unknown to the two chums, the boys remaining at the gully were having a bit of excitement of their own, and were seriously alarmed about the two in the cave.

The sound that d.i.c.k and Jack had heard in the cave was not thunder, as Jack had suggested, but something entirely different.

When the boys had been in the cave a short time, there came a sudden rustling on a part of the ledge Billy had aimed his camera at, and all of a sudden a great boulder fell into the gully.

"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed Arthur. "That's bad. Who would have thought of it?

Jack and d.i.c.k are shut in there!"

A considerable ma.s.s of earth had been carried down with the boulder, and now the entrance to the cave was completely filled by the rubbish.

"I am afraid they are shut in, Art," said Blaisdell seriously.

"Who would have thought of that?" cried Harry, going forward and looking into the gully. "Certainly Jack did not, or he would not have gone in there."

Blaisdell and three or four others stepped to the brink of the gully, and looked down, as the dust began to settle.

"It's closed up all right," said Billy Manners, covering the aperture of his pinhole camera.

"Do you mean the mouth of the cave or your picture box?" asked Blaisdell. "You are a funny fellow, Billy."

"Both," said Billy tersely.

"I guess it is as far as the cave goes," remarked Jasper Sawyer. "Now the question is how are we going to get the boys out?"

"H'm! we've got to take away that stuff, I suppose," said Harry. "It won't be so hard getting down there, but there's a lot of stuff to get rid of. Come on, boys, get down there and set to work."

"My! but there's a lot of this stuff!" exclaimed Sawyer, getting to work. "I wonder if we can get rid of it before the boys get back? Do you suppose they heard the noise and knew what it was?"

"How would they know?" asked Arthur, throwing aside a lot of stones and earth. "The place is probably pretty big, or they would have been back by this time."

There were four or five boys at work, but as Harry had remarked, there was a lot of the earth and stones to remove, and they were more or less in each other's way.

"We might call to them," suggested Jasper Sawyer at length. "If they are not too far off they will hear us."

"That's all right," agreed Blaisdell, and he and the rest of the boys shouted at the top of their voices.

There was no reply, and, indeed, Jack and d.i.c.k did not hear them, being at some distance from the mouth of the cave at this moment.

The boys presently shouted again, but still there was no response, and Harry said in great disgust:

"We are only wasting our breath. They can't hear through all this rubbish, and they may be a good way off. I should not wonder if the cave was a big one. There are some such in the mountains along the Hudson valley, especially in these counties. n.o.body bothers with them very much, but they're here all the same."

The boys kept hard at work removing the debris that had fallen into the entrance of the cave, but some of this consisted of great rocks, which were impossible to get rid of with the means at their disposal, and Harry presently growled, as he wiped his perspiring forehead with one hand while he leaned against the ledge with the other:

"We'll have to blow this stuff up. If it were only earth and gravel we could do something, but there are rocks as big as a house in the hole, and we can never get rid of them."

Several of these boulders had been uncovered by throwing aside the earth, so that Harry's statement was seen not to be an exaggerated one, and Arthur replied:

"We have nothing to blow it up with. Would prying do any good, do you think? We have no bars, but we can get plenty of stout poles from the trees, and they will help us."

"I shouldn't wonder. It is clear enough that we cannot do much with the shovels alone."

"Hark!" cried young Sawyer, who was too little to do a great amount of the kind of work the boys were doing at the moment, but who seemed to be on the alert; "don't you hear something?"

"Keep still, boys," said Billy Manners. "Sawyer has heard something.

There is not much of him, but it is all good stuff."

"Keep still!" said the smaller boy impatiently, and there was silence.