"I don't know; perhaps not He said something about Pet Peters having to do it himself if he insisted on carrying on this nasty business of bothering us. So perhaps we may have more trouble with them, unless Andy takes the bit in his teeth, and licks a few of his pals."

Will was meanwhile busily engaged with his camera. He first of all dragged several of the dead dogs around until they presented a gruesome appearance, bunched close together.

"Oh, if you would only run around that old tree a few times, Jerry, you don't know how much obliged I'd be. Of course any one must imagine that the dog pursuing you happens to just be out of sight at the time I snap you off. But think how much pleasure the picture will give future generations. _Please_ do!" he begged.

"What do I care about future generations? It would give me the nightmare every time I looked at the measly thing. I guess you'd feel the same way if you just imagined you were going to have a piece gobbled from your leg with every revolution you made. Nixey for me, old chum," observed the other, indignantly.

"Then if you won't, I suppose I'll have to take a still picture; but it's really too bad. However, I have others of you, and some day I'll try a composite picture, inserting you in the honorable position you decline to fill," grumbled Will, as he pressed the b.u.t.ton, and secured his view of the venerable tree with the clump of dogs near its base.

"Talk about your obstinate chaps, did you ever see the equal of him? When I decline to do the tall running act, he's going to get out a fake picture anyway, with me in it! In that case I might as well stand for it.

Here, you, I'll conspire with you to fix it. If it's got to be a counterfeit, let's make it a decent one."

So, after all, Will's persistency won out.

"You'll be glad when you see the result, I'm sure," he said, as he a.s.sisted Jerry to stand the dead hound on his stiffened feet, and make it appear as though he might be stretching out in furious pursuit of some one.

"Now, let me get started winding up around the tree. Tell me when the humbug business is over with," growled Jerry, beginning to circulate over the same track he had covered on the preceding day at such a speedy pace.

This matter was soon adjusted to the complete satisfaction of Will; though he seemed determined to get results, judging from the several "clicks" that announced his rapid-fire work with the camera.

The boys decided that there was no need of going back to the shack of the muskrat trapper again, while they were just half the distance from their own camp.

Jesse Wilc.o.x directed them, so that there was small chance of their going astray; and, besides, Jerry had been over the ground before on this very morning.

"I wonder whether he'll bother taking the pelts of those four dogs?"

ventured Will, as he and his two friends walked briskly along.

"Hardly. Dogskins may be valuable, but the buckshot in my gun just about ruined those for any use, all but the yellow fellow. I had to laugh at Jesse when he saw these tails. His eyes were like saucers," declared Jerry, chuckling.

"All right, it was a pretty clever piece of work, and he knew it. If that big hound had ever laid hold of you--ugh! I don't want to think of it.

Let's talk about something pleasant--Bluff's pump-gun for instance,"

remarked Frank.

His eyes met those of Jerry, and the other turned red in the face.

"I don't see anything pleasant about that subject. Goodness knows we hear enough of it from him. What d'ye suppose he wanted to stay in camp for?"

he demanded.

"Perhaps to cudgel his brains in order to remember whether he could have taken it with him when we ran out of camp that night; or, perhaps, to give another look around," suggested Frank, dryly.

"Good luck to him, then," continued Jerry. "He ought to employ the great American detective Will here, who discovers things by the print of a foot. Possibly he could follow up the trail of the thief until it led to the lost Gatling gun."

"It would have been a good idea if taken at the time. What's this plain trail lead to?" asked Frank.

"I think it leads direct from the hemlock camp to where Andy's crowd holds out," replied Jerry, who knew considerable about this region.

"Are we far away from the lake, then?"

"It's some closer than our camp. This trail has been traveled more or less lately, too. That proves those fellows have been back and forth.

They're bound to spend pretty much all their time while up here trying to make life miserable for us. We turn to the left here, fellows, and go right along this way."

The other two, after a look along the trail that led to the lake camp, were just starting to follow Jerry when they heard a m.u.f.fled cry. Looking hastily around, to their great astonishment no Jerry was in sight! And in the trail they discovered a gaping hole which was partly covered with a layer of slender sticks, thickly strewn with dead leaves!

CHAPTER XXI

DOWN THE OLD SHAFT

"He's gone!" cried Will, aghast.

"What sort of a trap has he dropped into?" exclaimed Frank.

He was a lad of action, and throwing himself down flat he crawled to the very edge of the gaping hole.

"h.e.l.lo, Jerry!" he shouted.

"I'm all right, fellows; only bruised a little, and my feelings considerably hurt. I deserve something for forgetting this hole," came a voice from out of the depths.

Frank looked down. His eyes being accustomed to the sunlight he could not see anything but darkness there. But even as he was trying to pierce this, a match flamed up, and he discovered his chum kneeling on a pile of dirt, holding up his improvised torch as though curious to look around.

"What is this place, Jerry?" demanded the one above.

"Why, Will must remember if he once gets his mind off that miserable old camera of his. It's the shaft of what was intended to be a mine," replied Jerry, with disgust plainly marked in his tones.

"A mine--and here? I never heard of it!" echoed Frank.

"That's because you are a newcomer in Centerville. Years ago--oh! I couldn't say how many--a crank lived in the little hut close by, now occupied by the family of a lumberman. He believed there was gold in this region. For nearly a year he dug down and made this shaft. Then he died in his cabin, and no one else ever had faith enough in the thing to continue the work," said Will, chiming in.

"What! do you mean to say this hole in the ground has gone all these years as a trap, ready to swallow any pilgrim who walked along this trail?" demanded Frank.

"Why, of course not. The boys from town often used to come up here. Will has been down in this hole, and so have I before. It was covered with heavy planks then. Somebody has removed those boards and laid a fine trap. Just like we were over in Africa, among the wild-beast catchers.

And I fell in, worse luck," grumbled the boy at the bottom of the shaft.

"I see. And you think those fellows in the other camp had a hand in it?"

"Don't doubt it at all. You know yourself it would be just like that Pet Peters. If I'd only thought of the blooming old thing in time, I might have investigated. Talk to me about your Alpine climbers, I thought I was going into the creva.s.se, all right."

"But how are you going to get out?" asked Frank, always practical.

"A fellow can't climb out. I know that, for we used to try it. Somebody always had to put down the long pole that we made into a ladder,"

declared Will.

"Is it around here now?" continued Frank.

"Wait and I'll give a look."