Kitabı oku: «The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise: or, The Cave in the Mountains», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XXIII – THE TREMBLING NOISE
Jack, Walter, and Paul tore away more of the bushes screening the mouth of the natural cave. As they removed the leafy branches the black hole was seen to be of large size, fully high enough to permit even a tall man to enter without stooping, and wide enough to enable three to walk abreast.
“This is some cave!” exclaimed Jack. “I wonder Mr. Floyd never told us about it.”
“Perhaps he didn’t know,” suggested Cora. “I wouldn’t have seen it, and I was within a few feet of it, if I hadn’t slipped and pulled away the bush.”
“Well, we’ll soon see if it amounts to anything,” declared Paul, setting down the pail of berries he was carrying.
“Are you girls coming in with us?” asked Walter, looking at Cora and her chums who had not advanced.
“I don’t know. Shall we?” asked Hazel, looking at her brother.
“I don’t want to stay here,” said Cora. “Besides, something might happen to the boys. But how are you going to explore the cave in the dark? And it is as dark as a bottle of ink in there. Have any of you your flashlights?”
“We can make a torch of wood,” said Jack, when it developed that none of them had one of the pocket electric lights.
But just as Jack and the others were about to enter the cave the mutterings of thunder which had been increasing, culminated in such a clap that the girls, involuntarily placed their hands over their ears.
“Come on! Run for the bungalow!” cried Cora. “Else we’ll be caught in a terrible storm! It’s starting to rain now.”
Some hot drops hissed down, the prelude to an almost tropical fury of the elements it seemed.
“We can go into the cave,” suggested Paul.
“No!” cried his sister. “You shan’t go in there with this storm coming up. The cave will keep. Come on, let’s run!”
She darted off down the side of the mountain, the other girls following. The boys hesitated a moment, and then, not wishing to desert the girls, even though the latter ran first, they followed.
“We can come back to the cave to-morrow,” said Walter. “It won’t run away. And to explore it well we ought to have the electric lights. Come on.”
Paul and Jack followed him, and they all reached the girls’ bungalow just as the deluge of rain came down.
For an hour or more the storm raged, blinding lightning and deafening thunder succeeding one another. But the bungalow was snug and safe, though once, when a tree was struck not far away, the girls screamed in terror.
That crash, however, seemed to be the culmination of the outburst, for from then on the rain began to slacken, and the thunder died away in muttered rumblings and the lightning became paler and paler until it was only a faint, shimmering light.
Then the dark sky cleared and the sun came out, shining through the storm-riven clouds and warming the ground and trees which were dripping from the vigorous bath.
“We got home just in time,” commented Cora, as they looked out on the ceasing storm. “A little longer on the mountain and we would have been drenched.”
“That cave was a find,” commented Jack. “I want to see what’s in it.”
“Probably nothing more than a hole in the side of the mountain,” commented Bess.
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” voiced Walter. “I wonder if Mr. Floyd knows anything about it?”
It developed that the caretaker did not, though he said there were several small mountain caves in that section, and this was probably one of them that he had not chanced upon.
“Do you think smugglers or pirates might have used it?” asked Hazel, with a smile.
“Hardly pirates,” commented Jack. “Too far from the water. But smugglers might have done so. We’re not so far from the Canadian line.”
“All bosh!” declared Paul. “It’s probably a garage dating from the stone age when the early inhabitants used the dinosaur as a jitney!”
They all laughed at his conceit and talked further of the cave and what they might find in it when they explored it the next day.
Whether it was the severe thunderstorm, or whether it was the culmination of the happenings of the past few weeks was not made clear, but it was certain that the girls, even Cora, were more nervous than they had been at any time yet.
“I – I wish we didn’t have to stay here to-night,” said Belle when supper was over, and they sat out on the porch, gazing into the fast-gathering darkness.
“Why?” asked Cora.
“Because I – I’m afraid. Come now, aren’t you?” she challenged.
“Well, I can’t say I like all the mysterious happenings,” Cora admitted. “And now that we know there is a cave near us – more than one perhaps – and that we don’t know who – or what – may be in them, why, I can’t say it is the most pleasant vacation we have experienced.”
“This bungalow gives me the creeps!” complained Hazel.
“Why not take ours?” suggested Walter. “It’s large enough for you to sleep in, and we’ll take this one. Come on, what do you say?”
“No, not to-night anyhow,” decided Cora. “We’ll keep to our agreement and stay here. Mrs. Floyd will be here with us.”
“And not Mr. Floyd?” asked Belle.
“No, not until later. He has to go to some town meeting I believe, and will come in around midnight. But nothing has happened in the last few days – not even a noise.”
“I’ve heard noises,” confessed Belle.
“What sort?” Jack inquired.
“Oh, sort of rumbling, trembling noises, and they seemed to be away down under the ground. I heard one yesterday, when I came back to get my veil after the others had gone out. It scared me,” Belle added.
“I think the waterfall causes those rumbling noises,” said Walter. “We’ll have to investigate that to-morrow.”
The boys went to their own bungalow, and Mrs. Floyd came in to occupy the small temporary bedroom. Her husband would be in later, she explained, confirming Cora’s information in that respect. The thunderstorm had cooled the rather oppressive air and there was a refreshing breeze blowing as the girls went up to their bedrooms.
Just who awakened first, it would be hard to say. Probably it was Belle, as she was the lightest sleeper. Cora heard her calling, and at the same time she was aware of another disturbance.
“Do you hear it?” asked Belle from her room.
“Yes,” Cora answered. At the same time she could hear Bess and Hazel getting up.
The whole bungalow seemed filled with a roaring, trembling noise, and there was a slight vibration of the building.
“What is it? Oh, what is it?” cried Belle, in hysterical tones.
“I don’t know,” answered Cora. “But I’m going to find out.”
“How?”
“By calling the boys. Mrs. Floyd, are you awake?” Cora demanded, going to the head of the stairs.
“Yes. That noise awoke me.”
“Is Mr. Floyd home?”
“Not yet.”
“Then I’m going to telephone for the boys!”
CHAPTER XXIV – THE SECRET PASSAGE
Hastily donning robes and slippers, the girls gathered about Cora as she rang the electric bell which had been arranged to summon the boys in the other bungalow to the toy telephone. Meanwhile, Mrs. Floyd had arisen and dressed to let in the boys. The rumbling, trembling noise had stopped.
“Oh, why don’t they answer?” cried Cora, impatiently pushing the electric bell button again and again.
Then, through the toy receiver came a faint voice.
“Hello! Hello, there! Is that you, girls? What is the matter?”
“This you, Jack?” Cora asked.
“Yes.”
“Come over as fast as you can! Hurry!”
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Don’t stop to question! Hurry over!” Cora begged. “It’s that terrible noise again. Can’t you hear it?”
“No,” answered Jack. “But we’ll be right over. Come on, fellows!” Cora heard him call to Walter and Paul, as he left the telephone. “The girls are scared.”
“I guess he’d be too, if he heard that noise,” Cora said. “Did you all hear it?” and she appealed to her chums.
“I did,” affirmed Hazel. “It sounded like distant thunder.”
“Could it have been?” asked Mrs. Floyd, who had joined the girls.
“The stars are shining,” reported Belle, looking from a window, shading her eyes with her hands from the light in the room. They had partly dressed and gone down to the living room. There they listened and waited both for a recurrence of the noise and for the approach of the boys.
The latter made their presence known first, fairly running along the graveled way that led from their bungalow, over the rustic bridge, to the girls’ abiding place.
“What’s all the racket about?” demanded Jack, as he and his two chums entered, rather breathless from their run and their hurry in dressing, the hurry showing itself in the absence of collars and ties.
“It’s that noise,” said Cora, her voice trembling slightly. “We heard it again, Jack.”
“Was it so scary?” demanded Paul, looking at his sister.
“It certainly was – too scary for words!” answered Belle. “I’m not going to pass another night in Camp Surprise!”
“It has been a surprise with a vengeance,” declared Bess. “Boys, can’t you do something?” she appealed.
“What’s to be done?” asked Jack. “We’ll have to wait until we hear the noise again, and then we can tell from which direction it comes. Suppose, while we’re waiting, you girls just tell us what you heard.”
They had all heard something different, it developed. At least, they all had a different impression of the noise.
Cora described it as a “trembling roar.”
Bess said it was a rumble, as though a heavy wagon had passed in front of the bungalow.
Belle said it reminded her of a deep, heavy sound, such as she had once heard in a blast furnace.
It was reserved for Hazel to describe accurately the noise, though none of them knew her description was correct until afterward.
“It was like a factory or machine shop next door,” said Paul’s sister. “It seemed to shake the bungalow as though heavy machinery were working.”
“It must be the waterfall,” decided Jack. “Only a large body of water, tumbling down into some chasm, could make a noise like that. There’s no machinery around here. Besides, the waterfall is bigger than ever now, on account of the rain. It must be that.”
“It wasn’t!” declared Cora, though when pressed for reasons to bolster up her denial she could give none. “It wasn’t that sort of noise at all,” she affirmed. “It was more like – ”
“What’s that?” asked Belle so suddenly that the other girls jumped nervously.
It was the sound of a footstep on the porch, a firm, unhesitating footstep.
“I expect that’s my husband,” said Mrs. Floyd.
It was Mr. Floyd, and he was, greatly surprised to see the “whole family up,” as he expressed it.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, looking around on the circle of rather startled faces, ending with his wife’s. “Did you sit up to see how late I got in? Strictly business, young ladies and gentlemen,” he went on, smiling at them. “The committee had considerable to transact, and I had to stay.”
“This is a sort of surprise party,” Cora told him. “Camp Surprise is living up to its name,” and she went on to tell about the noise, the others adding bits here and there.
“Pshaw now! That’s queer!” commented Mr. Floyd. “I have heard them rumblings myself, but I laid ’em to the waterfall. It’s a curious cataract at times.”
“This noise,” began Cora, “isn’t like anything I ever – ”
She paused midway in the sentence, and a strange look grew and spread over her face, as it did over the faces of the others.
“There it is now,” whispered Bess. “That – that noise!”
They all heard it, a dull, rumbling roar that made the bungalow tremble as when a heavy wind blows and vibrates the timbers of a house.
“So that’s what it is!” exclaimed Jack. “This is my first experience.”
“I heard it once, though distantly,” said Walter.
“Listen!” cautioned Cora.
The noise seemed to increase.
“Say, that is curious!” commented Mr. Floyd. “I never noticed that before. Where does it come from?”
Hardly had he spoken than the rumbling ceased, and there came a sharp crash, as though wood had broken somewhere.
“The chimney’s fallen!” cried Mrs. Floyd.
“Nonsense, Eliza,” said her husband. “The crash would be up on the roof if the chimney toppled over. Besides, there’s no wind, and the noise didn’t come from above, it came from – down there!”
He pointed to the floor of the living room, which was of bare boards, with rugs here and there.
“That’s right!” cried Jack. “The crash was below us. It’s under this bungalow somewhere. Up with the floor boards! We’ll get at the bottom of this!”
There was no doubt on that score. Every one in the room was sure the noise had come from under the floor.
“But how could it?” asked Walter. “There’s no cellar to the bungalow; is there?”
“None that I ever heard of,” said Mr. Floyd. “I didn’t live here when the bungalow was built, but I’ve always understood it had no cellar.”
“It hasn’t,” Cora affirmed. “At least none that you can find. There are no cellar stairs and the place seems to rest on piles.”
“But the noise came from down there,” and Jack pointed to the floor. “The only way to find out is to take up the boards. May we, Mr. Floyd?”
“Why, yes, I reckon so. We’ve got to get at the bottom of this. It’s better to spoil the floor than to lose the renting of the bungalow by ghosts scaring tenants away. Take up the boards. I’ll get an axe and a crowbar.”
And so, in the middle of the night, for it was close to twelve o’clock, the strange work of looking under the floor of the bungalow for the source of the queer noise was begun.
“Where shall we start?” asked Jack, when Mr. Floyd had brought the implements.
The caretaker considered a moment.
“If there is some sort of cellar, or space under this bungalow, it must be near the center of the floor, I’m thinking. We’ll begin there. Don’t be afraid of spoiling the floor. I’ll take the responsibility.”
Jack swung the axe vigorously, and, being aided by Walter, soon had removed two or three of the narrow boards. As they were prying on another, a queer thing happened.
A solid section of the floor from the middle of the room suddenly sank down, and then rolled back, exactly as a sliding door rolls, only this door was horizontal instead of vertical. Back it rolled, leaving what was practically a trap in the floor, and as the light shone down this a flight of steps was revealed leading into darkness.
“Great bumblebees!” gasped Jack. “See what we’ve done! Uncovered a secret passage! Now for the solution of the mystery!”
CHAPTER XXV – THE PATCHED TIRE
Crowding around Jack they all gazed down into the opening. For a moment no one spoke. Then Cora softly murmured:
“A secret passage.”
“What else is it?” demanded her brother. “No one knew it was here. You didn’t; did you?” he asked Mr. Floyd.
“Never had the least notion of it. How it got here is a mystery to me.”
“It must have been built in the bungalow, or put in after it was built,” said Bess. “What does it mean? What’s it all about?”
“That’s what we’re going to find out,” declared Walter.
“You don’t mean to say you’re going down – there!” and Belle, with a dramatic gesture, pointed to the dark opening.
“Why shouldn’t we go down there?” asked Paul. “It’s nothing but a cellar.”
“Cellar!” ejaculated Jack. “We’ll find this more than a cellar I’m thinking!”
“Well, the steps are just like cellar stairs,” said Paul.
“Except they’re of stone,” added Walter, “and that passage isn’t going to prove as prosaic as a cellar, I’m thinking.”
“How did you come to open it, Jack?” asked Hazel.
“That’s what I can’t tell you,” was the answer. “It seemed to open of itself when the axe, or something, hit on the hidden spring. It’s a secret door to a secret passage, and the land knows what we may find at the end.”
“Why, it’s just like in a book or a play!” gasped Belle.
“More like a play,” said Cora. “They have sliding doors like this on the stage where the spirits appear and disappear.”
“That’s it!” cried Jack, as if an idea had suddenly come to him.
“What’s what?” Walter demanded.
“This is where the spirits came from – the spirits that have been having fun with the furniture,” Jack went on. “Don’t you see? They came up through this secret door, did what they pleased, and went down again, closing the door after them by means of some secret mechanism.”
“You’re not so far wrong at that,” remarked Paul, examining the queer sliding door in the floor with a mechanic’s eye. “This is a pretty piece of work. You seem to have smashed the operating part of it with your axe, Jack, or at least the part of it that opened the door from this side. It slides back and forth though,” and Paul rolled the section of the flooring to and fro.
“Don’t close it!” cried Walter. “You might shut it so we couldn’t get it open again. We want to explore that passage.”
“That’s what!” came from Jack. “This is where the furniture-movers came from all right.”
“Though why they should want to upset chairs is more than I can account for,” commented Walter.
“We’ll find out when we go down there,” suggested Paul. “Wait until I take a look at this apparatus. We don’t want it closing over our heads after we get down there.”
The sliding door, or rather the section of flooring, was comparatively simple in arrangement. It was made so that it could be dropped down two inches, and then it could be rolled under the floor on small steel wheels, which ran on projecting strips of wood.
As Paul had said, Jack, by a blow of his axe, had destroyed the spring that controlled the mechanism, but this very chance blow of the implement had revealed the secret. Probably there was one certain board which, when pressed on, or shifted, operated the sliding door. And so cleverly was it fitted into the floor, and so tight was the joining, that the presence of it would never have been seen. Only by chance had they happened upon it.
“Well, who’s going down?” asked Jack, as they stood looking into the opening. “We’ll need lights, though.”
“I have my flash,” said Walter. Paul, it developed, had his also. Both were powerful pocket electric torches, with dry storage batteries.
“We’ll all go,” suggested Paul.
“No you won’t!” cried his sister. “We’re not going to be left here alone, with that queer noise likely to happen at any time.”
“I guess there won’t be any more noise, now that we have discovered this,” said Jack, significantly. “This is where it came from all right.”
“But what caused it?” asked Bess.
“That’s what we’ve got to find out,” said Walter. “Come on, boys. Into the secret passage!”
“I’ll stay with you girls,” said Mr. Floyd. “Let the boys investigate all they like. But this sure does beat me! To think this bungalow had this concealed under the floor all the while, and I never knew it.”
“No wonder this was named Camp Surprise,” said Cora.
“I don’t believe even them folks that give it that name suspected anything like this,” Mrs. Floyd remarked.
“We’ll take all the surprise out of it before we’re through,” Jack said, as he started down the stone steps. Walter and Paul followed, their flashes switched on. The stone steps proved to be made of cement well moulded, and there were ten of them, which led to a flat place under the bungalow, the floor of which was now three feet above the boys’ heads. They found themselves standing in a rectangular space, with heavy planks on the sides.
“Is it just a cellar?” called Mr. Floyd from up above, where he stood at the edge of the opening, with the girls and his wife.
“There’s a long narrow passage leading off somewhere,” Jack called back. “We’ll investigate. It doesn’t seem to be just a cellar though.”
“Be careful,” warned Cora, as the boys passed out of sight of those who were watching.
Jack, Walter and Paul found themselves in what was practically a planked passageway, about four feet wide and eight feet in height. There was a musty, damp smell to it, and when they had walked on a few feet over the hard-packed dirt floor, Jack said:
“This goes beyond the bungalow.”
“What do you mean?” asked Walter.
“I mean that we have passed beyond the limits of the bungalow. This passage extends back under the ground, perhaps into the mountain.”
“Maybe right into that cave we found to-day,” suggested Paul.
“It might be,” agreed Walter. “There’s something queer about this – something big, too. Keep on, and we’ll find where this passage leads to. It’s been built some time, that’s evident.”
This was shown by the fact that the planking on the sides and overhead was old, and rotted in some places. And the ground underfoot was packed so hard that it gave no evidences of footprints or other marks.
Wondering what lay before them, the boys pressed eagerly forward. And then, after a sudden turn, the passage came to an abrupt end. They found themselves up against a stone wall, a veritable, and not figurative one.
“Well, what do you know about this!” exclaimed Jack in chagrin.
“This is the end,” said Paul.
“Perhaps not,” asserted Walter. “This passage must lead somewhere. Nobody would go to all this work making it, only to block it off in this fashion. And it’s blocked off solidly enough, too,” he added as he banged his fist against the stone. Like the steps it seemed to be of cement.
“Isn’t there any way of opening that?” asked Jack.
“There doesn’t seem to be,” Paul said, examining it closely. “Looks to be pretty solid.”
“Can’t be,” declared Jack. “Else how could those spirits or boys get through and up into the bungalow to play tricks with the furniture?”
“If they were spirits a stone wall wouldn’t stop them,” Paul said. “But we can’t do anything more to-night.”
“Can we at any time?” asked Walter.
“Sure!” cried Jack. “We’ll get crowbars to-morrow and tear down this cement wall. Then we’ll find what’s at the other end of the passage. Now come on back and tell the girls.”
They found their friends eagerly waiting, though there was some disappointment when the boys reported finding nothing.
“Not a thing in that passage except the solid wall at the end,” Jack said. “But we’ll tear that down to-morrow and see what’s beyond.”
“Now hold on a minute,” said Mr. Floyd. “Of course I’m as anxious as you folks are to get at the bottom of this. But I don’t own this property, and before I let you go to work tearing down stone walls and so on, I’ll have to get permission from the owners.”
“Well, that’s right,” assented Jack. “Who are they?”
Mr. Floyd gave the name, and added the information that they, or rather the one man who owned this particular bungalow, could be reached by the long-distance telephone.
“Then we’ll call him up in the morning,” decided Jack. “I don’t know how far the passage extends, or whether it’s all under the property that goes with this bungalow, but we’ll get permission before we go ahead.”
This was agreed to, and when the girls learned that there was nothing to be alarmed at they went down into the passage also, as did Mr. and Mrs. Floyd.
“Well, there’s nothing more we can do,” said Cora. “Let’s get what little sleep there is left, and then prepare for work in the morning.”
“It’s almost morning now,” said Belle, pointing to the windows through which they could see a faint glow in the east, presaging the rising sun.
They were all too highly excited to sleep much, and they were up early. Boards were laid over the opening in the floor, it being feared if the sliding section was closed there might be trouble in opening it again.
The strange happenings of the night formed the only topic at breakfast, and then the boys set off for town to get in communication on the telephone with the bungalow owner.
“I can’t see why he would object,” said Jack.
“Unless he made that passage for his own use, and doesn’t want any one to meddle with it,” Paul remarked.
“What could he use it for?” asked Walter.
“Well, that may be part of the mystery. Let’s take a short cut to the village,” and he indicated a path that led toward the cave in the mountainside.
They emerged into a country road, thick with dust, and were trudging along this, talking on all the aspects of the queer discovery, when Jack suddenly stopped and stared intently at something in the dirt of the highway.
“What is it?” asked Walter. “A snake?”
“No, marks of an automobile tire,” Jack answered.
“Nothing very remarkable in that,” laughed Paul.
“There is in this one,” Jack declared excitedly. “See the big Z mark where the tire has been patched – vulcanized. Boys, that’s the same mark as was on the tire of Cora’s car! I believe her machine has been along here this morning!”
