“Good work!” shouted Chet. “Did you have to battle for it?”
“No battle at all,” returned Frank, bringing the motorcycle to a stop. “An old friend of ours had just borrowed it for a little ride.”
Chet looked at him incredulously. Frank laughed at the expression on his chum’s face.
“An old friend!” exclaimed Biff. “I didn’t know you had any friends around this part of the country.”
“He wasn’t exactly a friend. An acquaintance, I should say. Carl Schaum swiped the machine.”
Chet and Biff whistled simultaneously.
“Schaum was the thief!” Biff exclaimed. “Are you sure?”
“Where is he?” demanded Chet. “Did you tie him up?”
“We didn’t catch him,” confessed Joe. “He left the bike in the road when he saw we were gaining on him. Then he cleared out over the fence and into the woods.”
“That was too bad!” exclaimed Chet.
“Are you sure it was Carl Schaum?” asked Biff Hooper, for the second time.
“I got a good look at him,” Frank said. “It was Carl Schaum, all right. When we get to the next town we’ll tell the police. If they know he’s around here at all they’ll probably land him without much trouble.”
Chet went over to his motorcycle.
“Well, the sooner we get to the next town, the better. We’ve lost quite a bit of time already. What say we start on again?”
The chums agreed that the discovery of the swimming hole had cost them considerably more time than they had expected, so accordingly they mounted their machines again and set out on the highway once more.
VIII
Strange Doings
The Hardy boys and their chums spent the night at a hotel in a small village. They were up bright and early next morning, eager to reach the end of their journey. Had it not been for the delay consequent on the attempted theft of Frank’s motorcycle, they might have reached the neighborhood of the caves that evening, but, as it was, they had a two hours’ trip before them when they set out shortly after six o’clock.
Their immediate destination was a fishing village by the name of Glencove. It was a sleepy little place, quite picturesque but redolent of fishy odors, a typical hamlet of the kind. The boys were aware that Glencove was some distance north of the caves, but as they did not know the precise location of the “Honeycomb Cliffs,” as they were called, they preferred to stop off at the village and get what information they could.
The general store, a ramshackle building where one could buy anything from safety pins to grindstones, where one could mail a letter, put through a telephone call, or obtain garage service, appeared to be the most likely spot. Parking their machines by the wooden sidewalk, the lads went into the store, where they found a venerable man with white whiskers patiently scrutinizing his newspaper.
“I guess we’d better stock up on a few supplies, eh, fellows?” Frank suggested.
This had been their plan. Instead of burdening their machines with provisions all the way from Bayport, they had decided to get supplies at the village nearest to the caves.
“Perhaps we won’t have to stock up very heavily,” said Joe. “If the caves aren’t far away we may be able to drive up here when we run short of grub.”
“That,” said the hungry Chet, “would be terrible.”
Frank turned to the old gentleman, who had put aside his paper and was regarding them through his thick-lensed spectacles with grave curiosity, as though they were some new specimen of humanity entirely.
“How far is it to the place they call Honeycomb Cliffs?” he asked.
The old gentleman’s eyes widened.
“Honeycomb Cliffs!” he said, in a high, cracked voice. “Be ye goin’ to pass by there?”
“We want to camp around there for a few days and we were figuring on buying some supplies. If it’s far away we’ll buy all we need right now and carry the stuff with us.”
The old man leaned farther over the counter.
“Ye’re agoin’ to camp at Honeycomb Cliffs!” he exclaimed incredulously.
“Why, yes.”
“For three or four days!”
“Perhaps longer.”
The old gentleman shook his head solemnly.
“Ye’re strange to these parts, ain’t ye?”
“This is the first time we’ve ever been down this way.”
“I thought so,” returned the old man with a great air of satisfaction, as though his judgment had been verified.
“Well,” said Frank, becoming a trifle impatient, “we’d still like to know how much farther we have to go.”
“It’s a matter of about ten mile by the road. Then ye’ll have to walk a ways.”
“Ten miles. Why, that isn’t very far. We’ll just buy enough food to last us a day or so and then if we need more one of us can come back here. There’s no use packing along too much.”
“And ye say ye’re goin’ to camp there?” persisted the old man, as though he could not quite grasp the fact.
“Yes. What’s wrong about that? Aren’t there any places we can pitch a tent?”
“Oh, yes, there’s places ye can pitch a tent and I’ve no doubt but there’s fishermen’s cottages that you could find a room at. But if I was you I wouldn’t do no campin’ near Honeycomb Cliffs. That is,” said the old man, “unless ye stay away from the caves.”
“Why, that’s what we came for,” put in Biff. “We intend to explore the caves!”
The old man gave a perceptible gasp at this.
“Explore ’em! Lads, ye’re crazy.”
The old gentleman’s attitude puzzled the boys extremely.
“Is it against the law?” Chet inquired.
“No, it ain’t agin’ the law, but it’s agin’ common sense.”
“Why?”
“It just is—that’s all,” retorted the storekeeper, as though that explained everything.
“You don’t mean to say it’s dangerous!”
“Maybe. Maybe,” returned their informant mysteriously. “It may not be dangerous, but it would be foolish. If ye’ll take my advice ye’ll stay away from them caves.”
“Why?”
“There’s some queer things been goin’ on down there lately. Folks tell me the fishermen down that
