y much mistaken, it opens only on this passage! While
he's poking around in there, we'll sneak up and see what he's doing!"

Before the boys reached the entrance to the chamber they heard the
sounds of a pick. When they came nearer and looked in they saw the
detective poking away at a heap of "gob" which lay in one corner of the
excavation. He worked industriously, and apparently without fear of
discovery. Now and then he stooped down to peer into a crevice in the
wall, but soon went on again.

"I wonder if he thinks he can find two boys in that heap of refuse?"
laughed George. "I wonder why he don't use a microscope."

The detective busied himself at the heap of refuse for a considerable
length of time, and then began a further investigation of little breaks
in the wall. Using his pick to enlarge the openings he made a systematic
search of one break after another.

"Looks like he might be hunting after some pirate treasure," George
chuckled. "I never heard of Captain Kidd sailing over into the sloughs
of Pennsylvania. Did you?"

"That tells the story!" Will whispered. "The fellow is here on some
mission of his own. That story of his about being in quest of the boys
is all a bluff! I reckon he had heard somewhere that two boys were
missing and came here with the fairy tale!"

"Well, he's got a good, large mine to look in if he's in search of
treasure," George suggested. "He can spend the rest of his days here,
provided the operators don't get sore on him."

While the boys looked, Ventner turned toward the entrance to the
chamber, and they scampered away. Turning back, they saw him pass out of
the place where he had been working and into a similar excavation
farther on. There he worked as industriously as before.

"You see how it is," Will suggested. "The fellow is hunting for
something, and doesn't know where to look for it! So it's all right to
let him go ahead with his quest for hidden wealth, or whatever it is
he's after. When he finds it, we'll not be far away!"

"I like this walking about in my naked feet," George grunted in a
moment. "I had my slippers on when I came down the ladder, but I either
had to take them off and carry them in my hands or lose them in the
mud."

"Same here!" Will said. "I'm going back to my little cot bed right now
and go to sleep. I think we have the detective sized up and we can catch
the kids some other night."

"Me for the hay, too," George exclaimed. "I don't think I was