The boys proceeded slowly along the ledge.
There were numerous pebbles and small rocks underfoot. It was difficult to see these, because Frank was obliged to keep the flashlight centered on the trail ahead, and they were obliged to proceed cautiously in order to keep their footing. This circumstance led to disaster.
Unwittingly, Frank stepped on a small rock that rolled suddenly beneath his foot. He staggered, stepped on another rock that slipped to one side and then he sprawled forward, the flashlight spinning from his hand.
The light clattered among the rocks ahead and darkness fell about them.
“What’s the matter?” asked Joe, alarmed.
“It’s all right. I just slipped.” Frank got to his feet. “I lost the light. It fell down here somewhere. Hang onto the back of my coat and I’ll go ahead and get it.”
Joe caught at the back of his coat and Frank slowly felt his way forward in the deep blackness.
Suddenly he lurched ahead, his feet sinking in a treacherous mass of sand and gravel. Wildly, he strove to retain his footing, but the effort was in vain. He felt himself slipping and, as he uttered an instinctive cry of warning to Joe, he was flung into space.
Joe, who had been clinging to Frank’s coat, was wrenched to one side. He stepped forward, grasping for his brother, then he, too, went hurtling into the darkness.
They pitched down amid a clattering of rocks and pebbles. Then, with an icy shock, they plunged into a deep pool of water!
XIII
The Four Men
Profound darkness enveloped the Hardy boys.
The blackness of the icy pool was no blacker than the darkness of the air above.
Frank rose spluttering to the surface, unharmed by his fall, and as he splashed about, his first thought was for his brother.
“Joe!” he shouted. “Joe!”
There was no answer except from the echoes, and the rocks shouted mockingly back at him. “Joe. … Joe. … Joe. …” growing fainter and fainter until they died away to a mere whisper.
Then there was a splashing almost at his side, as his brother rose to the surface of the pool and struck out blindly.
“Are you all right?” called Frank.
“I’m all right!” gasped Joe.
“Keep beside me. We’ll try to find the edge of this pool.”
Frank swam forward, groping ahead, until at length his fingers touched the smooth rock at the water’s edge. But the rock was almost vertical and it was so smooth and slippery that there was no hope of a handhold. He swam to one side, feeling the rock as he went. Despair seized him as he found that the rock still rose steeply above. If they had fallen into a circular pit they were doomed.
In pitch darkness, then, they battled their way about the border of the pool until at length Frank’s searching fingers closed about a rocky projection that seemed to indicate a change in the surface of the cliff.
He was right. There was a small ledge at this point, and he was able to drag himself up on it. There was room enough for both of them, and he turned and grasped Joe’s hand, dragging him up on the rock after him. They crouched there in dripping clothes, breathing heavily after their exertion. Presently Frank began to grope upward, still examining the surface of the cliff.
He found that it sloped gradually, and that the surface was rough, with a number of footholds.
“I think we can climb it,” he told Joe. “It’s mighty dark, but if we can ever get back on the main ledge again we’ll be all right.” He said this because he judged that the place that they had found was on the side of the pool that lay toward the entrance of the cave. If they had emerged on the other side and had regained the ledge they would have been in another dilemma, because they might not have been able to cross the treacherous breach in the trail that had proved Frank’s downfall.
Frank groped his way up the face of the slope. He dug his foot against the first ledge and raised himself, clutching at a projection in the rock above. Then, scrambling for a further foothold, he managed to draw himself up. Here the slope became even more gradual and by pressing himself close against the rock, he was able to crawl on up, until at length he came to a flat shelf of rock that he recognized as the main ledge that they had followed from the entrance to the cave.
“I’m up!” he shouted back to Joe, and then he heard a scraping on the rocks, as his brother also began the ascent.
Joe made the climb without difficulty and in a short time rejoined his brother on the ledge.
“I guess we’d better go back,” Frank said. “This cave seems to lead to nothing but trouble. We’re better off out in the open.”
“Is the flashlight lost?”
“Yes. I think it smashed when it fell against the rocks. Anyway, I’m not going back to look for it in the dark. That ledge was treacherous enough even when we had the light.”
Step by step, proceeding cautiously, the Hardy boys made their way back toward the entrance to the cave. Their return journey was not so precarious because the entrance to the cave shone before them as a vague gray light and guided them on their way.
They reached the entrance at last and again stepped out into the bright sunlight. At first they were dazzled, after the blackness of the cave.
“First of all, we’re going to dry our clothes,” declared Frank, as he hunted around among the rocks for sticks that might serve for firewood. “I’m soaking wet.”
“Me too. Thank goodness, it’s warm out here.”
“I’m glad I carried the matches in this waterproof case, or we’d have been out of luck.”
They managed to find enough sticks and dry leaves to enable them to start a
