nly. "Somebody's been digging here. That's
where all this stuff comes from, underfoot."

"Where?" asked the others, crowding forward to look closer. Tom set down
the lantern and picked up a broken spade. There was a cavity in the wall
of this pocket-like passage. With a flourish Tom dug the broken blade of
the spade into the gritty earth.

"This is what Jerry wanted that mattock for, I bet!" he exclaimed.

"Oh, dear, me! do you believe so?" cried Ruth. "Then, right here, is where
he thought he might find his uncle's treasure box."

"Ho, ho!" ejaculated Ralph. "That old hunter was just as crazy as he could
be--father says so."

"Well, that wouldn't keep him from having money; would it?--and might be a
very good reason for his burying it."

"And the papers he declared would prove his title to a part of this
island," Ruth hastened to add.

That didn't please Ralph any too well. "My father owns the island, and
don't you forget it!" he declared.

"Well, we don't have to quarrel about it," snapped Tom, rather disgusted
with the way Ralph was behaving. "Come on! we might as well go back. But
here's one blow for liberty!" and he laughed and flung the spade forward
with all his strength.

Jerry Sheming had never suspected it, or he would not have left the
excavation just as he had. There was but a thin shell beyond where he had
been digging, and the spade in Tom's hand went clear through.

"For the goodness gracious grannies!" gasped Tom, scrambling off his
knees. "I--I came near losing that spade altogether."

There was a fall of earth beyond the hole. They heard it rolling and
tumbling down a sharp descent.

"Hold the lantern here, Ruth!" cried Tom, trying to peer into the opening.

Ruth did so. The rays revealed a hole, big enough for a man to creep
through. It gave entrance, it seemed, to another cavern--and one of good
size.

"Oh, my dear!" exclaimed Ruth, seizing Tom's arm. "I just know what this
means."

"You may. _I_ don't," laughed Tom Cameron.

"Why, this other cavern is the one that was buried under the landslide.
Jerry said he knew about where it was, and he's been trying to dig into
it."

"Oh, yes; there was a landslide on this side of the cliff just about the
time father was negotiating for the purchase of the island last summer,"
said Ralph. "We all came up here to look at the place a while afterward.
We camped in a tent about where the lodge now stands. That old crazy
hunter had just been ta