Chapter XXV: The Patched Tire

Crowding around Jack they all gazed down into the opening. For a moment no one spoke. Then Cora softly murmured:

"A secret passage."

"What else is it?" demanded her brother. "No one knew it was here. You didn't; did you?" he asked Mr. Floyd.

"Never had the least notion of it. How it got here is a mystery to me."

"It must have been built in the bungalow, or put in after it was built," said Bess. "What does it mean? What's it all about?"

"That's what we're going to find out," declared Walter.

"You don't mean to say you're going down--there!" and Belle, with a dramatic gesture, pointed to the dark opening.

"Why shouldn't we go down there?" asked Paul. "It's nothing but a cellar."

"Cellar!" ejaculated Jack. "We'll find this more than a cellar I'm thinking!"

"Well, the steps are just like cellar stairs," said Paul.

"Except they're of stone," added Walter, "and that passage isn't going to prove as prosaic as a cellar, I'm thinking."

"How did you come to open it, Jack?" asked Hazel.

"That's what I can't tell you," was the answer. "It seemed to open of itself when the axe, or something, hit on the hidden spring. It's a secret door to a secret passage, and the land knows what we may find at the end."

"Why, it's just like in a book or a play!" gasped Belle.

"More like a play," said Cora. "They have sliding doors like this on the stage where the spirits appear and disappear."

"That's it!" cried Jack, as if an idea had suddenly come to him.

"What's what?" Walter demanded.

"This is where the spirits came from--the spirits that have been having fun with the furniture," Jack went on. "Don't you see? They came up through this secret door, did what they pleased, and went down again, closing the door after them by means of some secret mechanism."

"You're not so far wrong at that," remarked Paul, examining the queer sliding door in the floor with a mechanic's eye. "This is a pretty piece of work. You seem to have smashed the operating part of it with your axe, Jack, or at least the part of it that opened the door from this side. It slides back and forth though," and Paul rolled the section of the flooring to and fro.

"Don't close it!" cried Walter. "You might shut it so we couldn't get it open again. We want to explore that passage."

"That's what!" came from Jack. "This is where the furniture-movers came from all right."

"Though why they should want to upset chairs is more than I can account for," commented Walter.

"We'll find out when we go down there," suggested Paul. "Wait until I take a look at this apparatus. We don't want it closing over our heads after we get down there."

The sliding door, or rather the section of flooring, was comparatively simple in arrangement. It was made so that it could be dropped down two inches, and then it could be rolled under the floor on small steel wheels, which ran on projecting strips of wood.

As Paul had said, Jack, by a blow of his axe, had destroyed the spring that controlled the mechanism, but this very chance blow of the implement had revealed the secret. Probably there was one certain board which, when pressed on, or shifted, operated the sliding door. And so cleverly was it fitted into the floor, and so tight was the joining, that the presence of it would never have been seen. Only by chance had they happened upon it.

"Well, who's going down?" asked Jack, as they stood looking into the opening. "We'll need lights, though."

"I have my flash," said Walter. Paul, it developed, had his also. Both were powerful pocket electric torches, with dry storage batteries.

"We'll all go," suggested Paul.

"No you won't!" cried his sister. "We're not going to be left here alone, with that queer noise likely to happen at any time."

"I guess there won't be any more noise, now that we have discovered this," said Jack, significantly. "This is where it came from all right."

"But what caused it?" asked Bess.

"That's what we've got to find out," said Walter. "Come on, boys. Into the secret passage!"

"I'll stay with you girls," said Mr. Floyd. "Let the boys investigate all they like. But this sure does beat me! To think this bungalow had this concealed under the floor all the while, and I never knew it."

"No wonder this was named Camp Surprise," said Cora.

"I don't believe even them folks that give it that name suspected anything like this," Mrs. Floyd remarked.

"We'll take all the surprise out of it before we're through," Jack said, as he started down the stone steps. Walter and Paul followed, their flashes switched on. The stone steps proved to be made of cement well moulded, and there were ten of them, which led to a flat place under the bungalow, the floor of which was now three feet above the boys' heads. They found themselves standing in a rectangular space, with heavy planks on the sides.

"Is it just a cellar?" called Mr. Floyd from up above, where he stood at the edge of the opening, with the girls and his wife.

"There's a long narrow passage leading off somewhere," Jack called back. "We'll investigate. It doesn't seem to be just a cellar though."

"Be careful," warned Cora, as the boys passed out of sight of those who were watching.

Jack, Walter and Paul found themselves in what was practically a planked passageway, about four feet wide and eight feet in height. There was a musty, damp smell to it, and when they had walked on a few feet over the hard-packed dirt floor, Jack said:

"This goes beyond the bungalow."

"What do you mean?" asked Walter.

"I mean that we have passed beyond the limits of the bungalow. This passage extends back under the ground, perhaps into the mountain."

"Maybe right into that cave we found to-day," suggested Paul.

"It might be," agreed Walter. "There's something queer about this--something big, too. Keep on, and we'll find where this passage leads to. It's been built some time, that's evident."

This was shown by the fact that the planking on the sides and overhead was old, and rotted in some places. And the ground underfoot was packed so hard that it gave no evidences of footprints or other marks.

Wondering what lay before them, the boys pressed eagerly forward. And then, after a sudden turn, the passage came to an abrupt end. They found themselves up against a stone wall, a veritable, and not figurative one.

"Well, what do you know about this!" exclaimed Jack in chagrin.

"This is the end," said Paul.

"Perhaps not," asserted Walter. "This passage must lead somewhere. Nobody would go to all this work making it, only to block it off in this fashion. And it's blocked off solidly enough, too," he added as he banged his fist against the stone. Like the steps it seemed to be of cement.

"Isn't there any way of opening that?" asked Jack.

"There doesn't seem to be," Paul said, examining it closely. "Looks to be pretty solid."

"Can't be," declared Jack. "Else how could those spirits or boys get through and up into the bungalow to play tricks with the furniture?"

"If they were spirits a stone wall wouldn't stop them," Paul said. "But we can't do anything more to-night."

"Can we at any time?" asked Walter.

"Sure!" cried Jack. "We'll get crowbars to-morrow and tear down this cement wall. Then we'll find what's at the other end of the passage. Now come on back and tell the girls."

They found their friends eagerly waiting, though there was some disappointment when the boys reported finding nothing.

"Not a thing in that passage except the solid wall at the end," Jack said. "But we'll tear that down to-morrow and see what's beyond."

"Now hold on a minute," said Mr. Floyd. "Of course I'm as anxious as you folks are to get at the bottom of this. But I don't own this property, and before I let you go to work tearing down stone walls and so on, I'll have to get permission from the owners."

"Well, that's right," assented Jack. "Who are they?"

Mr. Floyd gave the name, and added the information that they, or rather the one man who owned this particular bungalow, could be reached by the long-distance telephone.

"Then we'll call him up in the morning," decided Jack. "I don't know how far the passage extends, or whether it's all under the property that goes with this bungalow, but we'll get permission before we go ahead."

This was agreed to, and when the girls learned that there was nothing to be alarmed at they went down into the passage also, as did Mr. and Mrs. Floyd.

"Well, there's nothing more we can do," said Cora. "Let's get what little sleep there is left, and then prepare for work in the morning."

"It's almost morning now," said Belle, pointing to the windows through which they could see a faint glow in the east, presaging the rising sun.

They were all too highly excited to sleep much, and they were up early. Boards were laid over the opening in the floor, it being feared if the sliding section was closed there might be trouble in opening it again.

The strange happenings of the night formed the only topic at breakfast, and then the boys set off for town to get in communication on the telephone with the bungalow owner.

"I can't see why he would object," said Jack.

"Unless he made that passage for his own use, and doesn't want any one to meddle with it," Paul remarked.

"What could he use it for?" asked Walter.

"Well, that may be part of the mystery. Let's take a short cut to the village," and he indicated a path that led toward the cave in the mountainside.

They emerged into a country road, thick with dust, and were trudging along this, talking on all the aspects of the queer discovery, when Jack suddenly stopped and stared intently at something in the dirt of the highway.

"What is it?" asked Walter. "A snake?"

"No, marks of an automobile tire," Jack answered.

"Nothing very remarkable in that," laughed Paul.

"There is in this one," Jack declared excitedly. "See the big Z mark where the tire has been patched--vulcanized. Boys, that's the same mark as was on the tire of Cora's car! I believe her machine has been along here this morning!"