They shouldered their packs, whistled the pup to their heels, and went down to the thicket.  In a space not less than a hundred yards in diameter rhododendrons grew in indescribable density, while above them towered some huge hemlocks.  The two boys came close to the thicket and peered into it.  Even now, in the bright glare of the full sun, deep twilight reigned beneath the rhododendrons.  Evidently they were growths of great age.  Their stems were like young saplings.  Their tops rose high and spread wide.  And their branches were laced and interlaced and twisted and grown together so as to make a mass almost impenetrable.

“Great Ned!” cried Lew.  “A passer-by would have about as much chance of seeing us in there as we have of discovering China from this hillside.  The question is, how are we going to get into the place?”

Charley dropped on his hands and knees and crawled slowly under the low rhododendron branches.

“Keep right in my tracks, Lew, if you come in,” warned Charley.  “If there are any snakes in here, they’d bite a fellow before he could see them.  I’ll look sharp for them and if you follow me, you won’t run any risk.”

He picked up a fallen branch, trimmed it, and crept on, stick in hand.  Suddenly he crowded back hard on Lew, almost kicking him in the face.  At the same time he began to thrash about in the leaves ahead of him.

“Great Caesar!” he exclaimed.  “I almost crawled on a big rattler.  He was so near the color of the ground that I didn’t see him until he coiled and raised his head.  Gee!  That was a close shave.”

“As long as you didn’t get bitten,” said Lew, “It’s a good thing it happened.  We’ll be on our guard now.”

“Yes, indeed.  Did you put the potassium permanganate in the first-aid kit, and the hypodermic syringe?”

“Surest thing you know.”

“We’ll just carry them with us, Lew.  We won’t take any chances on death by snake-bite.  These mountains are full of rattlers and copperheads.”

“And we won’t take any chances on being bitten in this thicket, either,” answered Lew.  “We’ll put the pup in ahead of us.”

They whistled in the dog and sent him scouring through the thicket.  But either there had been no more snakes within it or else all had fled, for the dog raced eagerly about but found nothing to alarm him.

Confidently the boys now pushed into the interior of the thicket.  At the very heart of it lay the spring.  It came bubbling up through pure, white sand, and had formed a deep basin, over the lower edge of which the crystal water went rippling away through the thicket.

“We’ll put our tent right here,” said Charley, indicating a level spot beside the spring basin.  “We’ll have to clear away some of the bushes to make room for it.  We can use what we cut as a screen, though nobody would ever see a tent away in here, especially one of brown khaki, like ours.”