ith will be able to get us out, and if we can do it
ourselves, so much the better."

"Yes, and all the more credit to us, Jack."

CHAPTER XVII

DISCOVERIES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

The boys landed at the point where they had first gone ashore, well up in
the bay, as that would give them less walking, and pushed toward the
north, keeping as near to the shore as they could in the hope of being
thus better able to see the hidden smuggler in case she was still at the
island.

Making their way over rough ground, they at length came to an opening in
the rocks which was quite high enough for them to enter, and Jack said in
an eager tone:

"It is possible we may find something here, Dick. This seems to be a cave,
and smugglers and men of that sort make such places convenient."

"It looks rather dark, Jack," murmured Percival. "We had a pretty gruesome
experience in a dark cave when we first came to the island and I don't
want to repeat it."

"You won't find any devil fish in there, Dick," said Jack reassuringly.
"Besides, we have our flashes with us and are armed as well, and if we do
find anything uncanny we can put up a good fight, I imagine."

"That's all right, Jack, but once I have an experience of that sort I am a
little shy at venturing into a place anything like it. The mere look of
this cave made me think of the other."

"But there is no water here and it may be only a hole in the rocks after
all. Then it may lead to some retreat of these smuggler folk, and if it
does, so much the better."

"All right, Jack, I am with you," said Percival, and the boys entered the
hole in the rocks, as Jack called it.

It was more than that, as they presently discovered, for they found that
it extended much farther than they thought, and Jack, turning on his
pocket flash when there began to be less and less light to guide them, saw
that the passage went on for some distance.

It was high enough for them to walk upright and wide enough for three or
four persons to walk abreast, there being a few turns, but none sharp
enough to cut off the view ahead for some distance.

"Well, we won't get under water as we did in the other place, Jack,"
observed Percival as they walked on, meeting the first sharp turn and
being now unable to see behind them, "for we are going toward the interior
of the island and not toward the sea."

"No, and there will be no one to tumble down rocks upon us and shut us in,
or think they did, as h