"Blue!" replied the boys in a breath.
"That"s right, blue. Now, what sort of a suit did the detective wear this morning? It was blue, wasn"t it?"
"Sure it was!" replied George. "A blue serge! I noticed it particularly because it wasn"t much of a fit."
"Well, these are blue serge threads!" commented Will.
"That"s right, too," admitted Sandy.
While the boys still stood at the second level they heard some one moving down from the top. Will rushed around to the ladder and looked up.
He could not see the face of the man who was climbing down, but he could see that he did not wear a blue serge suit.
In a moment he called out to him, asking some trivial question regarding the action of the pumps. When the man looked down he saw that it was Canfield. The caretaker seemed surprised at finding the boys at the second level. He kept on descending.
"Wait!" Will called. "Stop where you are!"
"But I"ve got to find out what"s the matter with the machinery at the bottom," the caretaker called out. "There"s something wrong there!"
"Then you"d better take long steps," replied Will, "for if you put any weight on those rungs, you"re likely to land at the bottom of the shaft. The rungs have been cut!"
"I can"t believe that!" replied Canfield.
"Suppose you look and see!"
The caretaker advanced cautiously downward until he came to where a fine line of sawdust lay on one of the rungs.
"Do you know who did this?" he asked.
"We think we do," replied Will, "but this isn"t any time for long stories. The first thing for us to do is to get back into the breaker and cook Tommy and Sandy three or four breakfasts apiece!"
"So you found them, did you?" asked Canfield.
"No; we found them," shouted Tommy.
"Well, how"re you going to get out?" asked the caretaker.
"Get a rope," directed Will, "and throw it over the sound rung lowest down, and we"ll climb up until we can trust our weight on the ladder."
This plan was followed, and in a short time the boys all stood, hungry and tired, in their room in the breaker. Tommy made an instantaneous dive for the provisions which had been brought in the night before.
"Nice old time we"ve had!" he exclaimed, with his mouth full-of pork and beans. "I guess we"re some Boy Scouts after all!"
"I"m going to tie you up tonight!" Will declared.
While the boys talked and ate the caretaker darted to the door leading to the pa.s.sage which ended at the shaft.
He returned in a moment looking both angry and frightened.
"The pumps have, stopped!" he said. "The line will probably be flooded before tomorrow morning. The very devil seems to have taken full charge here today. I never saw anything like it!"
"There are boys in the mine who will be drowned!" exclaimed Tommy.
"I"m not so sure of that," answered Canfield. "It was only a suggestion on my part that the boys we are in search of have taken refuge under ground. I think I must have been mistaken!"
"Do you know, whether these breaker boys belonged to the Boy Scouts or not?" asked Will. "Did you ever see any medals or badges on their clothing which told of Boy Scout experiences?"
"Sure they belong to the Boy Scouts!" declared the caretaker, "and that is the very reason why I sent for Boy Scouts to help find them."
"What Patrol did they belong to?" asked Will.
"If you had heard them howling like wolves around the breaker night after night," was the reply, "you wouldn"t ask what patrol they belonged to!"
"Then they are in the mine!" shouted Tommy.
We all heard the call of the pack, but the funny thing is that they wouldn"t show themselves.
CHAPTER VIII
"THEY WENT UP IN THE AIR"
"There"s something funny about those boys!" exclaimed Canfield. "They seemed to be merry-hearted fellows, just a little bit full of mischief, but for some reason they never mixed with the others much."
"Where did they come from when they came here?" asked Will.
"The information in the letters I received from the attorney in charge of the case is that they came here from New York, not directly but by some roundabout way."
"Did this attorney ever inform you why he wanted the boys found?"
asked Tommy. "Are we all working in the dark?"
"He never told me why he wanted the boys found. For all I know, they may be wanted for some crime, or they may be heirs to an immense property. My instructions are to find them. That"s all!"
"Where did these boys lodge?" asked Will.
"They didn"t have any regular room," was the reply. "They slept in the breaker whenever the watchman would permit them to do so, and when he wouldn"t, they threw stones at him and slept in the railroad yard somewhere. But the strangest part of the whole business is the way they disappeared from sight."
"You didn"t tell us about that!" exclaimed Sandy.
"I meant to," the caretaker answered. "The last seen of them here they were at work on the breaker. It was somewhere near the middle of the afternoon, and the cracker boss had been particularly ugly. The two boys were often caught whispering together, and more than once the cracker boss had launched such trifles as half pound block of shale at them. I happened to be on the outside just about that time."
"The boys didn"t go up in the air, did they?" asked Sandy with a chuckle. "They haven"t got wings, have they?"
"To all intents and purposes, they went up into the air!" answered the caretaker. "One moment they were on the breaker sorting slate and stuff of that kind out of the stream of coal which was pouring down upon them, and the next moment they were nowhere in sight!"