just a lot of crazy fools."

"It's an easy thing to call a man a fool because he can understand or
like things that you don't," laughed Dick.

The boys at length got so far into the hole in the rocks that they had
to make use of Jack's pocket electric torch, and they proceeded, still
on a down grade, and finding the way a bit rough in spots, but at last
finding it better traveling and more level.

They had turned somewhat, and looking back, could not see the entrance
where they had come in, nor the gully beyond, nor any light, Percival
saying with a bit of a shudder:

"H'm! it is a bit creepy in here, isn't it, Jack?"

"Oh, I don't know," laughed Jack. "I think other people have been here
before us, Dick. I can see black spots on the rock overhead, as if smoke
from torches had made them. Then the rock under our feet is worn
somewhat. Some one has been in here before, although not recently."

"H'm! you notice everything, as Ken Blaisdell said just now," laughed
Percival. "Does anything escape your notice?"

"Well, Dick, I have had to keep my eyes about me pretty much all of my
life in order to make my way, and I suppose it has got to be a habit,
but am I any more observant than most boys? They say that little
children notice everything, certainly a good deal more than their
parents like, sometimes. Perhaps I have not gotten over my childish
habits."

"Oh, I don't believe you were one of those young nuisances that call
attention to everything, the grandmother's wig, the maiden aunt's false
teeth and the like," chuckled Percival. "Yes, I think you are
particularly observant and--hello! what's that?" as a dull sound broke
upon their ears.

"It might be thunder," said Jack. "It sounds somewhere behind us. That's
all right. This place begins to look interesting, Dick. Suppose we go
on."

The floor of the cave was quite level here, and the place wider and
higher than before, so that it was really much more a cave than a mere
hole in the ground, and the boys pushed on, having plenty of light from
Jack's torch, and being in no danger of stumbling or falling.

They pushed on for a few hundred feet, and then came upon a narrow
passage where they at first thought the cave ended.

Jack flashed his light ahead of him, and saw that there was evidently a
chamber beyond the passage, and in a few moments they came out in it,
and, to the amazement of both, saw a rude table and a bench, and on the
floor some old clothes, a