y since the nation went
dry."

"Is all this liquor?" asked Frank, incredulously.

"It is," said Captain Folsom, pulling a bottle from the nearest case
and examining the label critically. "And it's the genuine stuff, too.
Brought in from the Bahamas. English and Scotch whiskey."

Louder shouts overhead and the noise of many feet descending stairs
warned them the pursuit had drawn to the ground floor, and that they
were in momentary danger of discovery.

"Those two doors won't hold long," said Jack, anxiously. "If we can't
find that tunnel entrance, we are out of luck. I think myself, we had
better look for a door to the outside and try to escape that way."

At that moment, Tom Barnum's voice, low but tense and thrilling with
excitement, came out of the darkness ahead.

"Mister Jack, Mister Jack, come here. Here where ye see my light."

The others had not missed Tom before. But immediately on reaching the
cellar, he had gone exploring by the light of the matches he had
found in his pockets, without troubling Jack for the flashlight.

Hurriedly, the others now made their way to where a dim gleam of light
which went out before they reached it only to be succeeded by another,
showed where Tom was awaiting them. When they reached his side, they
found him crouched at the foot of a wall, pushing and straining at a
big barrel.

"Lend a hand," he panted. "The entrance is back here."

Almost over their heads on the floor above, an attack was made at this
moment on the door connecting living room and pantry. They could hear
the shouts to surrender, to unlock the door, and the blows being
rained upon the barrier.

"Push. It's a-movin'."

The barrel did move aside sufficiently to admit of a man getting
between it and the wall, and in the rays of the flashlight appeared a
small, door-like opening in the stone.

"In with ye, every one," said Tom. "I'll pile a couple o' these cases
on top of each other to cover up the entrance, an' climb over it."

The door above, the first of the two impeding pursuit, fell with a
splintering crash. There was a shout of triumph, giving way to
surprise when the pantry was found untenanted. Captain Folsom and the
boys without more delay crawled into the opening. They could hear Tom
piling cases over the entrance, then a thud as, having climbed his
barricade, he dropped to the cellar floor on the inside. Then he
joined them.

Once more, Jack called the precious flashlight into play, and