gest horses.

Meanwhile the others had been busy; even Ben had been persuaded to drop
his drilling and to help the other boys cut the great lever--a straight
spruce tree forty or forty-five feet tall. The girls, too, had worked;
they had even helped us drag the two spruce logs for the lever to slide
on. In fact, every one had worked with might and main in a kind of
breathless anxiety, for Rufus's very life seemed to be hanging on the
success of our exertions.

A few feet to the left of the fallen rock was another boulder that
served admirably for a fulcrum, and before long we had the big lever in
place with the end of the short arm bearing against the fallen slab.
When we had attached the horses to the farther end, Addison gave the
word to start. As the horses gathered themselves for the pull we watched
anxiously. The great log lever, which was more than a foot in diameter,
bent visibly as they lunged forward.

Every eye was now on the rock, and when it moved,--for move it
did,--such a cry of joy rose as the shores of that little pond had never
echoed before! The great slab ground heavily against the other rocks,
but moved for three or four feet, exposing in part the mouth of the
cave--the same little dark chink that affords entrance to the Den
to-day.

Other boulders prevented the rock from moving farther, and, although the
horses surged at the lever, and we boys added our strength, the slab
stuck fast; but an aperture twenty inches wide had been uncovered, wide
enough to enable any one to enter the Den.

Ben, Willis and Edgar Wilbur crept in, followed by Thomas with a
lantern; and after a time they brought Rufus out. We learned then that
in his haste after the fuse was lighted he had fallen over one of the
large rocks and, striking his leg on another stone, had broken the bone
above the knee. He suffered not a little when the boys were drawing him
out at the narrow chink beside the rock; but he was alive, and that was
a matter for thankfulness.

Thomas went back to get the lantern that Rufus had dropped. It had
fallen into a crevice between two large rocks, and while searching for
it Thomas found another lantern there, of antique pattern. It was made
of tin and was perforated with holes to emit the light; it seemed very
old. Underneath where it lay Thomas also discovered a man's waistcoat,
caked and sodden by the damp. In one pocket was a pipe, a rusted
jackknife and what had once been a piece of tobacco. In th