ing is
happening. If I find anyone or anything that's dangerous, I'll let you
know."

"Will you--sure?" queried Worth anxiously.

Before Phil, now out of the car and heading for the porch could answer,
there came the muffled sound of something inside the inn being moved. At
the sound Billy seized a heavy walking stick from the driver's seat,
which no one ever used, but which was carried simply because it might
some time come handy. Giving this to Phil, he himself took a short thick
rubber tube used at times when gasoline was transferred from a tank to
the machine reservoir.

"I'm going with you, Phil," he whispered. "No use to say no!"

CHAPTER XV

AT THE OLD TAVERN

Phil offered no objection, but took the walking stick and at once
entered the porch, making as little noise as possible. Billy came close
behind, feeling the rubber tube to make sure that it could stun, if not
kill, when handled with due precision and force.

As has been stated before, portions of the porch floor had been
previously broken in, where the elements had too heavily tested the
wood. Phil finally passed into the office without making any noise but
Billy was not so lucky. Despite his care, he misjudged where he trod
when he was near the doorway, when there was an ominous crackling sound
under his last footstep.

"Cr-r-r-r--a-c-c-k!" Down went his leg, clear above his knee. In the
effort to rise, down went the other leg with a similar crunching
crumble, and there was Billy submerged, so to speak, to the waist. Nor
did it stop there, for under the porch was a cellar that extended pretty
well under the fore part of the ancient building.

For half a moment Billy's form remained waist deep under the porch, when
from below there came another crackling, crunching sound, and Billy
began to descend at first slowly, as the rafters over the cellar began
to collapse. Then down he went amid a cloud of dust from the rotting
woodwork, as with a feverish exclamation he vanished from sight. Just at
this instant Phil wheeled, startled by the noise Worth was making and
started to whisper a cautionary "Silence!"

At this juncture Billy vanished from sight, though Phil heard him, as he
struck the earth of the partially filled cellar, give voice as follows:

"Hullo, Phil! I'm gone!" And that was all Phil then heard from Billy.

Just then there came a scuffling noise from the interior, where a door,
partially open, led from the old office to the r