er, and had splendid--what do you call those
thingumgigs?--oh yes, stalactites, and an underground waterfall."

[Illustration: A LESSON IN GOLF]

"Is there a guide there?" asked Eric.

"No; that's the best of it--no shillings to pay, and no bothering
lecture. People fight shy of it because it's so out of the way and
rather difficult to go down--the passage is narrow, and there's one bad
place. I thought if we had a rope, though, we could manage it easily;
and look! I've brought all these candles and three boxes of matches."

"It would be ripping to see an underground waterfall," said Eric. "There
isn't one in Lingham Cave."

"Yes; we might never get such an opportunity again. Who votes for
Whernscar?"

"I do," said Dorothy promptly. The idea of an adventure tempted her. She
was always attracted by the unknown.

"I suppose we should be all right? It will be quite safe, I mean?"
queried Gabrielle, a little doubtfully.

"Right as a trivet, with a rope and candles," replied Percy. "I expect
if this cave were nearer Lingham village it would be more popular than
the other. It's fearfully far from the station, though, which doesn't
suit trippers."

"We're trippers ourselves if we make a trial trip," laughed Eric.

All the four young people were excited at the prospect of exploring a
little-known cavern without the assistance of a guide. They felt like a
band of pioneers in a fresh country, or the discoverers of a new
continent. None of them in the least realized the risk of the
proceeding, and no older person was there to preach wisdom. Percy, who
had been over the fells before, knew the way, and therefore assumed the
direction of the party. Instead of going down to Lingham, they turned up
the hill instead, and struck across the spur of Whernscar. It was a
grim, desolate part of the country; the bare rocks, upheaved in strange
shapes and unclothed by any greenery, seemed like the skeleton of the
earth exposed to view. Stone walls took the place of hedges, and there
was scarcely a human habitation within sight. Scattered here and there
over the moorland were curious natural pits called "potholes", deep and
dark as wells, and with a sound of rushing water at the bottom. Into one
of these a small stream emptied itself, and was swallowed up bodily.

"They're fearful places," said Dorothy, holding Gabrielle's hand, and
gazing half-fascinated over the edge of the pit into the bubbling depths
below. "It's like a witch's