ed his bruises. Jack who was next in line was trying to help him
to his feet. His foot, too, struck an obstruction which caused him to
lose balance. To avoid falling on Tom, he put out his arms toward the
walls. Instead of meeting solid brickwork as before, however, he felt
his hands encounter crumbling earth. He lurched forward, and his face
was buried in a mass of mould.

Spluttering and blowing, he scrabbled around and his fingers closed
over a root. It came away in his clutch. The next moment a slide of
earth cascaded downward and Jack found himself leaning against a bank
of dirt, an uprooted bush in one hand, and a patch of moonlight and
sky overhead.

It was all clear. Where the tunnel approached close to the surface,
the roof and walls had caved in. Tom had stumbled over this mound and
fallen, and Jack accidentally had torn away the screen of bushes
obscuring the hole above.

"Come on, fellows," he cried, delightedly, scrambling upward, while
Tom Barnum, who had regained his feet and observed how the land lay,
boosted him; "come on, here's a place to get out of the tunnel."

Quickly the others followed. They stood in the midst of a grove of
trees. Some distance to the rear twinkled lights which indicated the
location of the Brownell house. No sounds of pursuit reached them.
But, stay. What was that? Captain Folsom bent down, his ear close to
the opening whence they had climbed out and up to the surface.

"They've found the tunnel, I'm afraid," he said. "They are coming."

"Can't we keep 'em back here?" said Bob, unexpectedly. "We can kick
more dirt down into the tunnel. And we can jump down and heave out a
lot of those fallen bricks, and so keep the gang back when they
arrive."

"But we couldn't keep up a defense like that forever," objected Jack.
"Some of them would be bound to go back through the tunnel, swing
around, and attack us from the rear. They have weapons, and we
haven't. We'd be caught between two fires."

Bob grunted.

"Guess you're right. But I hate all this running away. I'd like to
take a crack at them. Never gave me a fair chance the first time,
jumping on me in a gang, and when I had my back turned, too."

"I know how you feel, Bob," said Jack. "But, without weapons, run we
must. And we had better be quick about it now, too. They won't be long
working through that tunnel, if they have lights."

"No, the shouts are growing closer," said Captain Folsom, bending down
again to the hole