“This is a whopper!” said Joe, in an awed whisper.
Frank stopped, with a murmur of annoyance.
“What’s the matter?” asked Chet.
“My flashlight. It’s on the blink.”
Vainly, Frank tried to coax a gleam from the refractory instrument. It was no use. He put the light in his pocket.
“I’ll have to fix it tomorrow,” he said. “It won’t work any more tonight by the looks of things.”
“Here’s mine,” offered Biff.
But Frank declined.
“No thanks. One of you chaps take the lead for a while. I can follow easily enough.”
Joe took the lead, as Frank suggested, and the little party moved on again.
It was rough going. The floor of the cave became piled high with rocks, evidently from cave-ins that had occurred in times past; in other parts it was pitted with little gullies and holes. In trying to avoid these, the chums gradually became separated.
Frank stumbled along behind. He felt the loss of his flashlight, but said nothing, relying on finding his way by the radiance provided by the lights carried by the others.
Soon, however, the three lights became scattered. Joe had gone to one side to avoid a huge boulder; Chet had gone to the other side and encountered a pit that prevented him from returning to Joe’s trail; Biff had tried to follow Chet and had blundered into a labyrinth of rocks.
Frank stood uncertainly for a moment, then called out.
“We’re getting separated. Wait for me.”
The walls of the great cave flung back the echoes time and again.
He heard Joe shout:
“Where are you?”
Had it not been for the glow of Joe’s light he would never have known where the voice came from because the echoes confused him, and the tones seemed to come from all parts of the cave.
Frank realized that his own shouts would cause the same confusion to the others.
“Don’t move around!” he called. “I’ll head toward one of the lights.”
But evidently his order was misunderstood, for one of the lights began to move erratically through the darkness.
Frank went forward. He blundered against a rock and fell, bruising his knees. He got to his feet and went on, still in the direction of the nearest glow.
He was confused by the moving lights. Had his own flashlight not failed him this would not have happened.
Suddenly, he stumbled.
He lurched forward. His foot groped wildly for the firm rock, but there was nothing to stop his plunge. He had fallen into a pit.
Straight down through the blackness he hurtled, with a wild cry of terror.
The others heard that cry. They heard a far-off crash, and then the clatter of falling rock.
Joe was the first to shout.
“Frank!” he called.
There was no answer. The echoes rang back.
Although the other boys shouted time and again there was no answer from Frank Hardy. They searched frantically, casting the beams of their lights here and there, but they found no trace of him.
XIII
Stolen Supplies
The other boys searched for nearly an hour, but Frank Hardy seemed to have disappeared literally into the bowels of the earth.
With only their flashlights to illuminate the huge cave, they found it difficult to conduct the search with any degree of satisfaction. They blundered here and there, not at all certain that they were anywhere near the place where their companion had disappeared.
They found several deep pits in the floor of the cave, natural crevices and holes in the rock, but although they shouted at the top of their lungs they heard no answering cry from below.
“He must have fallen down one of these holes, that’s certain,” Joe declared. “I’m sure we haven’t missed any.”
“Why doesn’t he call back then?” said Biff.
In the glow of the flashlights the boys glanced at one another anxiously. Joe expressed the thought that the others were afraid to put into words.
“Perhaps he can’t.”
“Do you think he may be dead?” asked Chet quietly.
“We’ll hope not,” sighed Joe. “But when he doesn’t answer, things don’t look any too bright. Any of these crevices may be hundreds of feet deep, for all we know.”
“It will be a terrible end to our trip if anything like that has happened.”
“Not much use waiting for morning,” declared Biff. “This cave is just as dark in the daytime as it is right now. I sure wish we had a few more flashlights.”
“Or more powerful ones. We can’t see very far down the crevices in the rocks, with these lights.”
The boys talked in low tones. They were awed by the thought of what might have happened to Frank Hardy. In their ears still rang that last dreadful cry and they could still hear the crashing of rocks as their companion hurtled into the depths. Even now his mangled body might be lying in some subterranean pit from which it would be impossible to recover it. Joe shuddered.
They listened in vain for some faint cry. But there was nothing but the echoes of their own voices.
“We won’t give up for a while yet,” said Joe, with as much steadiness of voice as he could muster. “We’ll search around every pit and hole we can find. I can’t believe he was killed!”
Keeping close together, the lads slowly crossed the floor of the cave. When they reached an opening in the rocks they directed the beams of their three flashlights into the shadowy depths, thus gaining more radiance than had they been searching singly. Then they yelled and shouted.
There was no reply. The flashlights revealed only jagged walls of rock. There was no sign of Frank.
On to the next crevice. This, fortunately, was not deep, but although the lights revealed the bottom and although they played the triple beams along every inch of the floor of the subterranean ravine, there was no sight of a crumpled figure.
Patiently, they searched the cave, but at last they were forced to admit that they were at a standstill.
“Not much use going any farther just
