CHAPTER XXIII
"A BLOW FOR LIBERTY"
Ruth was a healthy girl and particularly free from "nerves"; but she _was_frightened. She was so proud that she determined not to admit to hercompanions that she was lost In the caves.
Indeed, she was not entirely sure that she _was_ lost. Perhaps this wasthe way she had come with Jerry. Only, she did not remember passing thelittle room with the four tunnels opening out of it.
This first passage into which she had ventured with so much apparentboldness proved to be the wrong one within a very few moments. She came tothe end of it--against an unbroken wall.
There she remained until she had conquered her nervous sobbing and removedas well as she could the traces of tears from her face. When she returnedto Tom and Ralph she held the lantern well down, so that the shadow wascast upon her face.
"How about it, Ruth?" demanded Tom, cheerfully, when she reappeared.
"That's not the one. It is just a pocket," declared Ruth. "Wait till I tryanother."
"Well, don't be all night about it," growled Tingley, ungraciously. "We'rewasting a lot of time here."
Ruth did not reply, but took the next tunnel. She followed this for even ashorter distance before finding it closed.
"Only two more. That's all right!" exclaimed Tom. "Narrows the choicedown, and we'll be surer of hitting the right one--eh, Ruthie?"
She knew that he was talking thus to keep her courage up. Dear old Tom! hewas always to be depended upon.
She gathered confidence herself, however, when she had gone some distanceinto the third passage. There was a place where she had to climb upon ashelf to get along, because the floor was covered with big stones, and sheremembered this place clearly.
So she turned and swung her Tight, calling to the boys. Her voice wentechoing through the tunnel and soon brought a reply and the sound ofscrambling feet.
"Hold up that lantern!" yelled Ralph, rather crossly. "How do you expectus to see?"
Young Tingley's nerves were "on edge," and like a good many other peoplewhen they get that way, he was short-tempered.
"Now we're all right, are we, Ruth?" cried Tom.
"I remember this place," the girl of the Red Mill replied. "I couldn't bemistaken. Now you take the lantern, Tom, and lead on."
They pursued the tunnel to its very end. There it branched again and Ruthboldly took the right hand passage. Whether it was right, or no, sheproposed to attack it firmly.
After a time Tom exclaimed: "Hullo, Ruthie! do you really think this isright?"
"What do you mean?"
He held up the lantern in silence. Ruth and Ralph crowded forward to lookover his shoulders.
There was a heap of rubbish and earth half-filling the tunnel. It had notfallen from the roof, although neither that nor the sides of the tunnelwere of solid rock.
"You never came through this place, Ruth!" exclaimed Ralph, in that"I-told-you-so" tone that is so hard to bear.
"I--I didn't see this place--no," admitted Ruth.
"Of course you didn't!" declared Ralph, crossly. "Why! it's right upagainst the end of the tunnel."
"It _does_ look as though we were blocked, Ruthie," said Tom, with lessconfidence.
"Then we'll have to go back and try the other passage," returned the girl,choking a little.
"See here!" cried Tom, suddenly. "Somebody's been digging here. That'swhere all this stuff comes from, underfoot."
"Where?" asked the others, crowding forward to look closer. Tom set downthe lantern and picked up a broken spade. There was a cavity in the wallof this pocket-like passage. With a flourish Tom dug the broken blade ofthe spade into the gritty earth.
"This is what Jerry wanted that mattock for, I bet!" he exclaimed.
"Oh, dear, me! do you believe so?" cried Ruth. "Then, right here, is wherehe thought he might find his uncle's treasure box."
"Ho, ho!" ejaculated Ralph. "That old hunter was just as crazy as he couldbe--father says so."
"Well, that wouldn't keep him from having money; would it?--and might be avery good reason for his burying it."
"And the papers he declared would prove his title to a part of thisisland," Ruth hastened to add.
That didn't please Ralph any too well. "My father owns the island, anddon't you forget it!" he declared.
"Well, we don't have to quarrel about it," snapped Tom, rather disgustedwith the way Ralph was behaving. "Come on! we might as well go back. Buthere's one blow for liberty!" and he laughed and flung the spade forwardwith all his strength.
Jerry Sheming had never suspected it, or he would not have left theexcavation just as he had. There was but a thin shell beyond where he hadbeen digging, and the spade in Tom's hand went clear through.
"For the goodness gracious grannies!" gasped Tom, scrambling off hisknees. "I--I came near losing that spade altogether."
There was a fall of earth beyond the hole. They heard it rolling andtumbling down a sharp descent.
"Hold the lantern here, Ruth!" cried Tom, trying to peer into the opening.
Ruth did so. The rays revealed a hole, big enough for a man to creepthrough. It gave entrance, it seemed, to another cavern--and one of goodsize.
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Ruth, seizing Tom's arm. "I just know what thismeans."
"You may. _I_ don't," laughed Tom Cameron.
"Why, this other cavern is the one that was buried under the landslide.Jerry said he knew about where it was, and he's been trying to dig intoit."
"Oh, yes; there was a landslide on this side of the cliff just about thetime father was negotiating for the purchase of the island last summer,"said Ralph. "We all came up here to look at the place a while afterward.We camped in a tent about where the lodge now stands. That old crazyhunter had just been taken away from here. They say he tried to killBlent."
"And maybe he had good reason," said Tom. "Blent is without a doubt apretty mean proposition."
"Just the same, the island is my father's," declared Ralph, withconfidence. "He bought it, right enough."
"All right. But you think, Ruth, that perhaps it was in this buried cavethat old Mr. Tilton hid his money box?"
"So Jerry said. It looks as though Jerry had been digging here----"
"Let's have another crack at it!" cried Tom, and went to work with thespade again.
In ten minutes he had scattered considerable earth and made the hole muchlarger. They held the lantern inside and saw that the floor of the othercavity was about on a level with the one in which they stood. Tom slid theold spade through the hole, and then went through himself.
"Come on! let's take a look," he said, reaching up for Ruth and thelantern.
"But this isn't finding a way out," complained Ralph. "What will the otherfolks say?"
"We'll find the opening later. We couldn't venture outside now, anyway. Itis still storming, you can bet," declared the eager Tom.
Ruth's sharp eyes were peering here and there. The cavern they had enteredwas almost circular and had a dome-shaped roof. There were shelves allaround several feet above the floor. Some of these ledges slanted inwardtoward the rock, and one could not see much of them.
"Lift me up here, Tom!" commanded the girl. "I want to scramble up on theledge."
"You'll hurt yourself."
"Nonsense! Can't I climb a tree almost as well as Ann Hicks?"
He gave her a lift and Ruth scrambled over the edge with a little squeal.
"Oh, oh, oh!" she cried. "Here's something."
"Must be," grunted Tom, trying to climb up himself. "Why, I declare,Ruthie! that's a box."
"It's a little chest. It's ironbound, too. My! how heavy. I can't liftit."
"Tumble it down and let's see," commanded Ralph, holding the lantern.
Ruth sat down suddenly and looked at the boys.
"I don't know," she said. "I don't know that we've got any right to touchit. It's padlocked. Maybe it is old Mr. Tilton's treasure-box."
"That would be great!" cried Tom.
r /> "But I don't know," continued Ruth, reflectively. "We would better nottouch it. I wouldn't undertake to advise Jerry what to do if _he_ foundit. But this is what they call 'treasure trove,' I guess. At least, it waswhat that Rufus Blent had in mind, all right, when he sold Mr. Tingley theisland with the peculiar reservation clause in the deed."