There she remained until she had conquered her nervous sobbing and removed as well as she could the traces of tears from her face.  When she returned to Tom and Ralph she held the lantern well down, so that the shadow was cast upon her face.

“How about it, Ruth?” demanded Tom, cheerfully, when she reappeared.

“That’s not the one.  It is just a pocket,” declared Ruth.  “Wait till I try another.”

“Well, don’t be all night about it,” growled Tingley, ungraciously.  “We’re wasting a lot of time here.”

Ruth did not reply, but took the next tunnel.  She followed this for even a shorter distance before finding it closed.

“Only two more.  That’s all right!” exclaimed Tom.  “Narrows the choice down, and we’ll be surer of hitting the right one—­eh, Ruthie?”

She knew that he was talking thus to keep her courage up.  Dear old Tom! he was always to be depended upon.

She gathered confidence herself, however, when she had gone some distance into the third passage.  There was a place where she had to climb upon a shelf to get along, because the floor was covered with big stones, and she remembered this place clearly.

So she turned and swung her Tight, calling to the boys.  Her voice went echoing through the tunnel and soon brought a reply and the sound of scrambling feet.

“Hold up that lantern!” yelled Ralph, rather crossly.  “How do you expect us to see?”

Young Tingley’s nerves were “on edge,” and like a good many other people when they get that way, he was short-tempered.

“Now we’re all right, are we, Ruth?” cried Tom.

“I remember this place,” the girl of the Red Mill replied.  “I couldn’t be mistaken.  Now you take the lantern, Tom, and lead on.”

They pursued the tunnel to its very end.  There it branched again and Ruth boldly took the right hand passage.  Whether it was right, or no, she proposed to attack it firmly.

After a time Tom exclaimed:  “Hullo, Ruthie! do you really think this is right?”

“What do you mean?”

He held up the lantern in silence.  Ruth and Ralph crowded forward to look over his shoulders.

There was a heap of rubbish and earth half-filling the tunnel.  It had not fallen from the roof, although neither that nor the sides of the tunnel were of solid rock.

“You never came through this place, Ruth!” exclaimed Ralph, in that “I-told-you-so” tone that is so hard to bear.

“I—­I didn’t see this place—­no,” admitted Ruth.

“Of course you didn’t!” declared Ralph, crossly.  “Why! it’s right up against the end of the tunnel.”

“It does look as though we were blocked, Ruthie,” said Tom, with less confidence.

“Then we’ll have to go back and try the other passage,” returned the girl, choking a little.

“See here!” cried Tom, suddenly.  “Somebody’s been digging here.  That’s where all this stuff comes from, underfoot.”