They hurried along the passage by which they had entered the cabin, reached the hole in the bow by which they had entered and then, as Percival turned on his flashlight, which he had extinguished after entering the cabin aft, they hurried forward toward the hole in the rocks.

“There is no water here, Dick, at any rate,” said Jack.

“No, there is not, but I can’t think what made—­hello!”

“What’s the matter, Dick?”

“Where is the way up?  I can’t find it.  The passage was not a wide one, was it?  We cannot have gone astray?”

“No, I don’t see how we could,” muttered Jack, as he looked around him, the place being well lighted by Dick’s flash.  “Hello!  I see what the trouble is, and now I know what the noise was.”

“Well?” asked Percival.

“Some of the rocks have fallen in, Dick.  That was what made the noise.  Here is our rope.  We are in the right place, therefore.  The way up is closed, however.  Or, at any rate, it is closed here, but I don’t believe——­”

“The rocks were not loose, were they, Jack?”

“I did not notice that they were, and there has been no rain to send them down.  They must have been loose, however.  How else could they have tumbled in?”

“I don’t know, unless some one took a bar or a pole, and sent them down that way.”

“Nonsense, Dick!  Who would do that?”

“I know plenty who would do it.  Who pushed you into the ravine, back at Hilltop at the risk of your life?”

“Yes, but there is no one around, and no one knew where we were going.  You don’t suspect little Jesse W., do you?”

“No, indeed,” said Percival, with a hearty laugh, “but some one has seen us go down here, and they have thrown down the rocks to make it harder for us to get out.”

“It does not seem likely, Dick,” said Jack in a doubting tone.  “There was no one about, and we are the only ones who know the place.  We said nothing about it, and young Smith will keep quiet.  Come, that is hardly worth thinking of.  Let us see how we can get out.  There must be some way.”

Dick turned his light this way and that, and Jack lighted a match, saying with a significant chuckle: 

“That is all very well, but this is better for our purpose.  Watch!”

The flame presently began to flicker, and indicated the presence of a draught of air, Jack noticing the direction whence it came, said: 

“Try this way, Dick.  There is a draught which makes the flame flicker.  Try the axe on the rocks and see if you can loosen them, or, better yet, see if there isn’t a fissure somewhere.”

“Yes, there is,” said Percival, climbing a mass of rock somewhat to one side of where the others had fallen.  “Yes, I see it, Jack.”

Between them, working with the axe and their hands, the boys opened up a passage between the rocks wide enough for them to crawl through, and in a few minutes were on the top of the wooded point only a few yards from where they had entered the strange place.