“Sure! Fall asleep and be kidnapped,” Joe teased. “You’d better come along.”
“But I’m tired, fellows.”
Chet reluctantly agreed and brought up the rear as the boys, unlighted flashlights in hand, walked silently and cautiously toward the spot where Frank had seen a light.
The clear, star-studded sky made it easy for them to find their way. When they reached the front of the mansion’s ruins, Chet flopped down on a granite stepping-stone. He yawned, and his head flopped down onto his ample chest.
No light was visible, but there were muffled sounds.
“Sombody’s digging!” Joe whispered.
“For the lost gold, I’ll bet.” Chet came to life. “Let’s rush ’em!”
“We’d better wait here awhile,” Frank advised. “Nobody can see us, and we may be able to pick up some useful information.”
The boys strained their ears. A thud sounded emptily in the distance. Then another.
Suddenly Chet sneezed. In the stillness, the sound seemed magnified a hundred times. The thuds stopped.
“Quick! Move to another place!” Frank ordered. “They’ve spotted us!”
As he grabbed Chet by the arm and pulled him roughly from his perch on the stepping-stone, a flash winked in the distance and the sound of a rifle shot shattered the stillness.
“I’m hit!” Chet cried out, falling to the ground.
“Where?”
“In the leg.” Chet writhed in pain.
Apprehension gripped the Hardys. Had their friend been badly wounded? It would take both to carry him to their car. Meanwhile, what about the diggers?
“First things first,” Frank said, gritting his teeth.
Forgetting all other problems, the brothers hauled Chet to his feet and put an arm over each of their shoulders. At a safe distance from the rifleman, they laid him on the ground.
“Hurry. Get me to a doctor,” Chet moaned.
Frank, using his body to shield the beam of his flashlight, bent low to examine the wound.
Blood oozed from above the right knee, but there was only a long, deep scratch on Chet’s leg.
“You weren’t shot, Chet.” Frank tried to conceal his grin. “You’ve scratched your leg on the stepping-stone. Hold on—I’ll bandage it.”
“I’m not shot?” Chet sat up in surprise.
“Are you disappointed?” Joe asked.
“Guess not,” Chet replied as Frank bound the wound with a clean handkerchief. He added, “Thanks, fellows. Didn’t mean to scare you like that.”
“Forget it,” Frank said. He turned to his brother. “Joe, put an ear to the ground.”
The blond boy obeyed. Receding footsteps told him there were at least two enemies. Then dull thuds made it evident they had gone back to their work.
“Come on! Let’s find that guy who shot at us!”
“Right! Chet, you stay here till we get back.”
“But they’re armed!” Chet argued. “You haven’ t got a chance against them!”
“We’ll be careful,” Frank promised. “We have to find out who they are and what they’re up to.”
With that, the Hardys slipped into the darkness, circling toward the spot from which the rifle flash had come.
CHAPTER XVI
An Old Safe
“LISTEN!”
Frank grabbed Joe’s arm, and the boys stood stock-still. Work was going on in a pit among the ruins of the plantation’s former study.
“Sure I scared ’em off,” a man said braggingly. “Pretty brave till they heard my gun.”
“Good thing we got the stones blasted out before they came,” another said.
“I just hit something, Hank! Gimme your strong light.”
Junior! And another of the boys’ kidnappers!
In a moment a glow sprang up not more than twenty feet from the Hardys. Frank and Joe crouched low to avoid detection, all the while observing the bizarre scene before them. The two men, their backs toward the boys, were stooping down in a hole dug along an inside cellar wall of the house.
“It’s a safe, Hank!” Junior said excitedly.
“Jumping jiminy!” Joe whispered to his brother. “If they’ve found the gold, we’ve got to act fast!”
The boys backed away and held a hurried consultation. It was decided that they had better try to stop the criminals from opening the safe rather than go for the police.
“But how?” Frank pondered.
“I’ve got it!” Joe said softly. “The atom crackers!”
Frank immediately grasped his brother’s idea. “We’ll scare them off! Careful, Joe. If they see the light of the match, we’re sunk.”
The younger boy pulled the bag of atom crackers from his pocket and crouched at the very base of the wall so that the light of his match could not be seen by the men.
When the fuse of the little red ball sputtered, Joe hurled it toward the edge of the woods about fifty feet from where Junior and his companion were standing.
One second, two seconds, then—wham!
The diggers jumped and cursed, as Joe lit the second cracker.
“Sh-shoot back at ’em, Junior!”
Joe lobbed the cracker. Junior reached for his rifle. As he did, a second explosion burst from the opposite direction, and then a third from still another direction.
“We’re surrounded!” he cried out. “We’d better scram.”
As if to help the men on their way, a fourth atom cracker burst behind them, filling the night with a thousand reverberations. The boys thought of following to nab at least one of them, but both started shooting over their shoulders as they fled.
Frank and Joe stopped running. Regretfully, they watched the erratic course of the men’s firing as the two fled to the road, scrambled into an automobile, and roared off.
“Let’s get our car!” Joe urged.
Frank reminded his brother of the distance to their car and the fact that Chet was alone, his leg injured.
“I’d say we ought to have a look at that safe before Junior and Hank decide to return with reinforcements.”
“You’re right,” Joe agreed.
The Hardys went back to Chet, who was in a near-panic because of the shooting. Relieved to see his friends safe, the boy declared he could limp with little pain and insisted upon going to the pit and watching.
“This sure is an old safe,” Frank declared as he climbed down into the hole and examined the large, rusted object with its old-fashioned dial.
Excitedly the boys looked around for tools the diggers might have left, so they could open the safe. They found nothing but two spades, which were of no help.
“Tell you what,” Chet spoke up. “You fellows stay here. I’ll go tell General Smith what happened. He’ll probably want to come out here, and we can bring tools.”
“Good idea,” Frank said. “You stay home and take care of that wound.”
Chet’s leg was swelling and had begun to ache. When he reached the car, he gave a couple of blasts on the horn to let the Hardys know he had reached it safely, then drove off.
Frank and Joe figured that the general would arrive by midnight, but two hours went by and he did not come. Had Chet been waylaid? the brothers wondered.
Finally the boys could no longer stand the suspense of waiting, and started for the road. They had just made the turn toward Centerville when a car came along.
Ducking behind some bushes, they let it go past without hailing the driver. There must be no more mishaps tonight!
“It’s our car,” Frank whispered. “Look, it’s turning into the lane!”
The Hardys followed on a run. The condition of the overgrown road was so bad that the car had to crawl along, with the result that the boys easily caught up to it. General Smith was at the wheel. When he stopped, Frank opened the door.
“We were worried about you, sir,” he said. “Is Chet all right?”
“Yes, and being attended to by Claude at home. But he arrived with an empty ga
s tank. What a time I had getting some at this hour of the night! Well, let’s get to work. I understand we’re on the brink of finding the long-lost gold!”
In the back of the car were a crowbar, sledge hammer, file, a blowtorch, and some rope which General Smith had borrowed from the garageman who had sold him the gasoline. The boys lugged the equipment to the pit, and pointed out the safe, which had been craftily concealed in a wall.
“It’s not going to be easy to open this,” the officer said as he stood in front of it. “And the noise may attract attention.”
The general ordered Frank to stand guard, while he and Joe worked. Fifteen minutes later the blowtorch had failed to make a hole, but Frank thought they might crack through the hot iron. Joe replaced him as guard.
“Hold this chisel at the edge of the dial, General Smith, while I swing the sledge hammer,” Frank requested.
The officer held the chisel unflinchingly while Frank, his sure eye guiding the heavy tool, hit one crashing blow after another. The steel dial gave way grudgingly, but finally, with a mighty stroke, Frank knocked it off the rusty safe.
With a little prying, the bolt came loose and Frank pulled on the door. It creaked open. He half expected a cascade of gold to tumble into his hands, but instead only a bundle of old papers greeted his eyes!
“Here’s a book,” he said, reaching farther back into the safe. Frank opened it and flipped the pages as General Smith trained his flashlight on the discovery.
“A diary!” Frank exclaimed. Hastily he read the entries in the old book, apparently written by Beauregard Smith himself. Recorded were the daily happenings on the plantation. With the mentioning of the advance of the enemy army, the remarks became terse. Some days’ events were listed in only a sentence or two. Finally the last entry in the old diary said simply:Despairing, have taken cannon balls to
tunnel. Sent message to General Smith.
Frank whistled. “What a clue! Joe, come here!” he cried out.
“First an arsenal. Now a tunnel,” General Smith said. “This is getting more baffling as we go along.”
“The arsenal might be a tunnel,” Joe said, after reading the notation.
“I have an idea,” Frank declared, “that the gold and a lot of old cannon balls are lying side by side in some secret tunnel. Tomorrow we’ll have to start some real digging.”
“The sooner the better!” Joe exclaimed.
“I’ll hire a couple of laborers to help us,” General Smith offered, “and we’ll dig this place up till we find that tunnel!”
The eastern sky was faintly pink as the group gathered up the papers and set off for the car. Back home they bathed, ate, and caught a few hours’ sleep. Then the general made some telephone calls to arrange for two workmen in Centerville to help with the digging on the plantation.
Chet, who was the last one awake, was agog over the news. Though his leg was stiff and sore, he insisted upon going with the group to hunt for the tunnel.
Directly after breakfast, they set out for town to pick up the two workmen. On the way, the Hardys discussed with General Smith where the tunnel might be.
“It’s hard to say,” the officer said. “I would imagine it led from the cellar of the mansion to one of the other buildings. Or it might have been an underground entrance for slaves coming to the house.”
A few minutes later, having picked up the laborers, they drove to the old plantation.
“I want you to dig in the ruins of this mansion,” the general told the men. “We think there may be an old tunnel here somewhere.”
The laborers plied picks and shovels, and the boys pitched in to aid in the arduous task. Together they dug in the hot sun until late in the morning when Joe’s pick struck a layer of bricks.
“Hand me a crowbar!” he called up to Chet, who was sitting on a pile of stones watching the work.
His friend let down the long bar. Joe pried at the bricks by his feet. Suddenly they caved in and the crowbar plopped into a deep hole.
“I’ve hit a tunnel!” Joe cried.
CHAPTER XVII
A Fresh Perspective
THE opening Joe had made in the earth was large enough for him to slip through. He beamed his flashlight below. There definitely was an underground passageway!
“Lower me down here, Frank,” he called excitedly.
Frank and Joe interlocked their wrists, the older boy easing his brother down into the black hole.
“Okay,” Joe called hollowly in the vault below. “I’ve hit bottom. It’s solid.”
“What do you see?”
Joe flashed a beam around the moss-covered walls of the tunnel.
“Nothing here,” he shouted. “But I’ll find out where it goes.”
“Wait for me,” Frank urged.
In a moment he, too, was in the tunnel. The boys turned left and walked gingerly in the bricked passageway toward what once apparently had been the opening into the cellar of the mansion. The entrance was sealed up by a heap of stones which had fallen down from the old foundation.
“This is as far as we go in this direction,” Joe said. “Let’s find the exit.”
Picking their way along the dark tunnel, the boys walked nearly two hundred feet. There was no sign of gold or of any cannon balls. Presently the passageway started uphill.
“Here’s a dead end,” Frank concluded as they came to a halt before a mound of earth.
“But it must lead somewhere,” Joe insisted. “I’m going to give it a kick.” He sent his foot thudding into the soft dirt. “Look! I see daylight!”
Joe’s kick had opened a slight fissure in the earthwork at the end of the tunnel.
He stood back a few feet, then ran forward, twisting so that his shoulder hit the dirt wall with a solid impact. The end of the tunnel gave way and Joe went sprawling.
Frank quickly followed. When the boys’ eyes became accustomed to the sunlight, they realized they were at the foot of a small terrace behind the ruins of the plantation house.
“This knoll probably was built just to conceal the opening to that tunnel,” Frank remarked.
“And it’s concealing something else,” Joe whispered excitedly. “Look!”
Frank followed his brother’s gaze to a figure crouched behind a tree, apparently observing every move of the two diggers, Chet, and the general. He was thin, and had a stubbly gray beard.
Joe started toward the man, but in his haste stepped on a twig, which snapped with the sound of a revolver shot. The watcher looked around. When he saw Frank and Joe coming toward him, the man took to his heels.
Hearing the sound of crashing brush, the others at the ruins turned in surprise to see the Hardys racing after a stranger.
“How the dickens did they get out of that tunnel?” Chet spluttered.
As the laborers watched open-mouthed, Frank and Joe sped after the fugitive, who seemed to be following a familiar route. Though a swift runner, he was no match for the Hardys. In a few minutes they overtook him.
“Lemme go!” he cried loudly as the boys held on to him. “I ain’t done nothin’!”
The boys recognized the voice as that of Hank, the man who had been with Junior when they discovered the safe.
“Why were you spying on us?” Frank demanded.
“None o’ your business what I do for the pro—”
The man caught himself and refused to say another word.
“Pro?” Frank thought. On a hunch, he said, “Better talk, Hank! We know you’re working for Professor Randolph.”
Frank’s deduction evidently had been correct. A wild look came into their prisoner’s eyes. He made a desperate effort to escape, but the Hardys tightened their grip and escorted the man back to the ruins.
General Smith met the trio a distance away from the laborers. “Brought in a prisoner, eh?”
Frank whispered to the officer, “I’m sure he’s one of the gang. He was watching us work.”
The general tried to make the man talk, but it was usele
ss. He decided to turn the fellow over to the police at once. Since the Hardys wanted to investigate the tunnel farther, they remained at the spot.
After the prisoner’s hands and legs had been firmly tied, Chet, as custodian, went along with the general to Centerville.
Frank and Joe looked carefully at every brick in the old tunnel but found no clue to the treasure.
“I don’t think this is the tunnel old Beauregard Smith meant,” Joe said at last.
While the boys waited for General Smith to return, they discussed the mystery from every angle. Perhaps now they would get a break, if the prisoner would tell all he knew. They were still discussing the capture when the general returned alone, Chet having remained at the police station to provide the chief with full information.
“But even if he doesn’t talk, we know he’s one of the Bush gang,” Joe declared.
“I don’t like Bush’s silence,” Frank spoke up. “It’s kind of ominous. I think we ought to check-mate him.”
“Good idea,” the general agreed. “But how?”
Frank mulled over the problem.
“The man we captured seemed to be heading for a definite destination. Perhaps Bush and his gang have a hideout right under our noses.”
“It would be mighty hard to ferret them out,” the officer said. “They’re probably in a secluded place where they’d have the draw on us. If it’s in the timberland, it would take an army to beat the bush.”
“Unless we got high enough to look down on them,” Frank suggested.
“A plane!” Joe was excited as he informed the general that both he and Frank were experienced pilots.
“But the noise would give you away before you reached them,” the officer objected.
“There’s nothing to make them suspect we’d be flying,” Frank declared.
“I’ve noticed several private planes around here in the past week. Is there an airport nearby, General Smith?”
“Yes, a big one about twenty miles from Rocky Run. Why don’t you do it this afternoon? I think there’s been enough gold hunting for one day.”
When they arrived home, Chet handed the Hardys a telegram. It said:GOOD CLUE. JUNIOR OLDER. WEST
The Secret of the Lost Tunnel Page 9
