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.

“Hello, 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 crevasse, 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.”

Will very carefully placed his camera with its accompanying case of films.  He made sure that it was out of the way, so that no one might incautiously step on the same, and ruin his heart’s delight.  Then he passed into the bushes to scour the immediate neighborhood.