"And the papers he declared would prove his t.i.tle to a part of this island," Ruth hastened to add.
That didn"t please Ralph any too well. "My father owns the island, and don"t you forget it!" he declared.
"Well, we don"t have to quarrel about it," snapped Tom, rather disgusted with the way Ralph was behaving. "Come on! we might as well go back. But here"s one blow for liberty!" and he laughed and flung the spade forward with all his strength.
Jerry Sheming had never suspected it, or he would not have left the excavation just as he had. There was but a thin sh.e.l.l beyond where he had been digging, and the spade in Tom"s hand went clear through.
"For the goodness gracious grannies!" gasped Tom, scrambling off his knees. "I--I came near losing that spade altogether."
There was a fall of earth beyond the hole. They heard it rolling and tumbling 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 creep through. It gave entrance, it seemed, to another cavern--and one of good size.
"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Ruth, seizing Tom"s arm. "I just know what this means."
"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 into it."
"Oh, yes; there was a landslide on this side of the cliff just about the time 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 crazy hunter had just been taken away from here. They say he tried to kill Blent."
"And maybe he had good reason," said Tom. "Blent is without a doubt a pretty mean proposition."
"Just the same, the island is my father"s," declared Ralph, with confidence. "He bought it, right enough."
"All right. But you think, Ruth, that perhaps it was in this buried cave that 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 the spade again.
In ten minutes he had scattered considerable earth and made the hole much larger. They held the lantern inside and saw that the floor of the other cavity was about on a level with the one in which they stood. Tom slid the old spade through the hole, and then went through himself.
"Come on! let"s take a look," he said, reaching up for Ruth and the lantern.
"But this isn"t finding a way out," complained Ralph. "What will the other folks say?"
"We"ll find the opening later. We couldn"t venture outside now, anyway. It is still storming, you can bet," declared the eager Tom.
Ruth"s sharp eyes were peering here and there. The cavern they had entered was almost circular and had a dome-shaped roof. There were shelves all around several feet above the floor. Some of these ledges slanted inward toward the rock, and one could not see much of them.
"Lift me up here, Tom!" commanded the girl. "I want to scramble up on the ledge."
"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 lift it."
"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 touch it. It"s padlocked. Maybe it is old Mr. Tilton"s treasure-box."
"That would be great!" cried Tom.
"But I don"t know," continued Ruth, reflectively. "We would better not touch it. I wouldn"t undertake to advise Jerry what to do if _he_ found it. But this is what they call "treasure trove," I guess. At least, it was what that Rufus Blent had in mind, all right, when he sold Mr. Tingley the island with the peculiar reservation clause in the deed."
CHAPTER XXIV
A MIDNIGHT MARAUDER
Meanwhile the boys and girls left behind in Jerry Sheming"s old camp began to find the absence of Ruth and her two companions rather trying. The time which had elapsed since the three explorers started to find the eastern outlet of the cave seemed much longer to those around the campfire than to the trio themselves.
Before the searching party could have reached the brookside, had the tunnel been perfectly straight, the nervous Belle Tingley wanted to send out a relief expedition.
"We never should have allowed Ruthie to go," she wailed. "We all should have kept together. How do we know but they"ll find the cave a regular labyrinth, and get lost in it, and wander around and around, and never find their way out, or back, and----"
"Oh, for the goodness sake!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mary c.o.x, "don"t be such a weeping, wailing Sister of Misery, Belle! You not only cross bridges before you come to them, but, I declare, you build new ones!"
"She"s Old Man Trouble"s favorite daughter," said Heavy. "Didn"t you know _that_? Now, Miss Fuss-Budget, stop croaking. Nothing"s going to happen to Ruthie."
"Not with Tom on hand, you can wager," added Helen, with every confidence in her twin brother.
But at last the watches of the party could not be doubted. Two hours had crept by and it was getting very late in the evening. Some of the party were, as Ann said, "yawning their heads off." Lluella and Heavy had camped down upon the old buffalo-robe before the fire and were already more than half asleep.
"I do wish they"d come back," muttered Bob Steele to Isadore Phelps. "We can"t tell in here whether the storm has stopped, or not. I don"t just fancy staying in this cave all night if there"s any possible chance of getting to Mr. Tingley"s house."
"Don"t know what can be keeping those folks. I believe I could have crept on my hands and knees through the whole hill, and back again, before this time," returned Busy Izzy, in a very sleepy voice.
"Now, you can talk as you please," said Ann Hicks, with sudden decision, "but I"m going a short distance along that tunnel and see if the lantern is in sight."