The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise: or, The Cave in the Mountains

He ran toward the bungalow, followed by the others.

CHAPTER XXII – A MOUNTAIN CAVE

Advancing rapidly toward the girls’ bungalow, where so many strange happenings had occurred, and where even now the strange light was flashing, first at one window, then at another, Cora and her chums – boys and girls – speculated on what could be the cause.

“Let the boys go first,” cautioned Belle. “We don’t know what it might be.”

“That’s right! Wish the danger on to us!” commented Jack. “But we’re not afraid.”

“It’s only those mischievous boys,” declared Paul. “We’ll catch ’em in the very act now.”

“But how did the little rascals get in without our seeing them?” asked Walter.

“We weren’t watching the bungalow very closely,” said Paul. “They could easily have slipped in from the back, around on the forest side. They watched their chance.”

“But what’s their game?” asked Jack, as they crossed the rustic bridge on the run, their footsteps echoing dully on the boards.

“Go easy!” cautioned Walter. “Don’t make so much noise, or we’ll scare them away before we have a chance to catch them.”

“They can’t hear us above the noise of the waterfall,” declared Jack. “But what’s their game? That’s what I want to know. Why are they flashing that light about so?”

“There must be two or three of them with lights,” said Cora. “For first I noticed it up in the window of my room, and a second later, certainly in less time than any human boy could make the trip downstairs, the light showed from a window in the living room.”

“Probably there are three or four of the little rascals,” said Walter. “Come on now, we’re almost there.”

“Wait here, girls,” suggested Cora. “Let the boys go ahead, though after they catch these mischief-makers I’ll feel like giving them a good shaking myself.”

Walter, Paul and Jack advanced toward the bungalow. They went softly up on the porch, looking sharply for a sign of the light.

“Seems to have gone out,” commented Jack in a whisper.

“Yes. They must have heard us and switched it off.”

“Probably they’ve skipped out, too, worse luck!” came from Paul.

Indeed, as they listened, they could hear no sound from the bungalow, at the door of which they now stood. All was silent and dark within.

“Got a match?” Walter asked.

“Take my flashlight,” returned Jack. “It’s stronger than Cora’s.”

The brilliant white beam of light from the electric flash which Jack handed to Walter illuminated the interior of the living room. And at the sight which met the gaze of the boys, they could not restrain murmurs of astonishment.

“Well, would you look at that!”

“Same thing over again!”

“And right under our noses too! They never made a sound!”

“What is it?” called Cora, from where she and her chums stood waiting. “Did you catch them?”

“Haven’t yet,” answered Walter, playing the light about the room. “But the furniture is all upset, just as it was the other day, only more so. Come on up, girls. I guess there’s no danger. The boys have probably skipped out, though we may get them yet. Jack, you go around to the side door. Paul, you cover the back. I’ll take a run through the bungalow and stir them up.”

Pausing to light a lamp in the living room, Walter ran up the stairs to the apartments of the girls, while Jack and Paul formed a guard outside the bungalow. The girls still remained a little distance away, awaiting developments.

But there were none – at least inside the bungalow. Walter came down stairs to report that no one was up there.

“But are things upset in our rooms?” asked Bess.

“And is anything taken?” Hazel questioned.

“I didn’t stop to look,” confessed Walter. “I was just trying to drive out intruders.”

“None came out the door I was watching,” declared Jack.

“Nor where I was,” said Paul.

“How in the world did they get away so quickly?” asked Walter.

No one could answer him and they all turned their attention to the living room.

As Walter had said, it was more upset than on the other occasion. Every chair in the big apartment had been overturned, and in some cases two were jammed together, the legs interwoven. On a table two chairs had been piled, while the couch was turned completely upside down, and a stool perched on top of it, a sofa cushion surmounting that.

Other sofa cushions were tossed about the room, as though the intruders had been having a pillow fight, and in fact the whole room had that appearance.

“But nothing seems to have been taken,” said Cora, after a look around, when the furniture had been put to rights.

“Better not be too sure,” cautioned Walter. “Wait until you take a look upstairs. I only glanced around.”

“How in the world could they do all this without making a noise?” asked Paul. “It seems to have been done in a hurry, and boys are rather clumsy – I know I was. They ought, by rights, to have stumbled all over themselves, doing this by the light of only a pocket flash. And yet we heard no racket as we ran up. It was all quiet.”

“That’s one queer part of it,” admitted Walter. “It almost makes one believe in – ”

“Ghosts! Go on and say it,” challenged Cora. “You can’t scare us.”

“Any more than we are frightened now,” said Belle.

“Are you frightened?” asked Jack.

“A little,” she confessed. “Wouldn’t you be – if you were I?”

“I might be,” he admitted. “But we’ll get at the bottom of this for you, and catch those youngsters.”

“If we only could be sure they were boys,” Belle murmured.

“Who else could it be?” asked Jack.

“Ask us something easier,” suggested Paul. “Go ahead upstairs, girls, and see if anything is missing.”

This advice was acted upon, and when the place was aglow with lights Cora and her chums took “an account of stock,” as Jack said.

“Well, any of your ‘war paint’ missing?” he demanded of his sister when she came down.

“Only a few little trinkets,” she said, “ribbons and things like that. If it were not impossible, I should say girls had a hand in this.”

“It isn’t impossible,” declared Walter. “Girls can do almost anything nowadays. But it isn’t likely. Some boys are just as fond of bright things as are girls, and probably these youngsters hope to make neckties of your ribbons.”

“Well, what are we going to do about it?” asked Jack, when they had sat discussing the curious happening for some time.

“What can we do?” Walter demanded.

“I know one thing I am going to do,” declared, Belle, “and that is I’m going home in the morning.”

“No!” cried Cora.

“I am if this mystery isn’t cleared up. It’s getting on my nerves horribly,” and she gave a quick glance over her shoulder as a slight noise sounded.

“I did that,” confessed Hazel, who had dropped a book.

“Don’t do it again, my dear,” begged Belle.

“Now look here!” cried Cora, “this won’t do. We’re going to stick it out. We agreed on that, you know. We’re going to find out what this mystery is.”

“That’s what I say!” came from Bess.

“I’m willing to stay,” declared Hazel.

“Well, since I seem to be in the minority I’ll have to give in,” sighed Belle. “I’ll stay if you all do, but I really think some one ought to be in this bungalow with us – one of the boys or – ”

“I’ll stay here,” came from Jack, Walter, and Paul in a trio.

But when Mr. and Mrs. Floyd returned from town, and heard of the strange happenings, they offered to sleep in a small room opening off the living apartment.

The night, however, passed without incident, though none of the girls slept well. Morning seemed to quiet the frayed nerves, and the happenings of the night before did not seem so mysterious in the glare of the golden sun.

The season for berries was at its height now, and as many varieties grew on the mountainside the young campers organized another expedition one day, about a week after the disturbance in which the light figured. Mrs. Floyd promised to bake the pies if the boys and girls gathered the berries.

They planned for an all day stay, taking their lunch, and early in the afternoon all berry baskets were filled. Then, as there were some ominous-looking clouds in the west, they decided to start for the bungalows.

They were about half a mile from Camp Surprise, on a new short cut which Mr. Floyd had mentioned, when Cora, who was hurrying along in the lead, slipped on a slight declivity and, to save herself from falling, grasped a bush.

The bush, however, offered little hold, for it came away in her hand, and Cora slid on, until she brought up on a level place. She looked back, to join the others in the laugh at her slight mishap, when her eyes noted the place from which the bush had pulled away.

“Why look! Look here!” she called to the others. “Here’s a regular cave!”

“A cave?” echoed Jack.

“Yes. There’s a big hole which I’d never have seen only the bush became uprooted. Come here!”

“Come on!” cried Jack. “Let’s see where this leads to. It may have something to do with the mystery.”

“What mystery?” asked Bess.

“What mystery? The mystery of Camp Surprise! Maybe the boys hide in this cave. Come on!”

CHAPTER XXIII – THE TREMBLING NOISE

Jack, Walter, and Paul tore away more of the bushes screening the mouth of the natural cave. As they removed the leafy branches the black hole was seen to be of large size, fully high enough to permit even a tall man to enter without stooping, and wide enough to enable three to walk abreast.

“This is some cave!” exclaimed Jack. “I wonder Mr. Floyd never told us about it.”

“Perhaps he didn’t know,” suggested Cora. “I wouldn’t have seen it, and I was within a few feet of it, if I hadn’t slipped and pulled away the bush.”

“Well, we’ll soon see if it amounts to anything,” declared Paul, setting down the pail of berries he was carrying.

“Are you girls coming in with us?” asked Walter, looking at Cora and her chums who had not advanced.

“I don’t know. Shall we?” asked Hazel, looking at her brother.

“I don’t want to stay here,” said Cora. “Besides, something might happen to the boys. But how are you going to explore the cave in the dark? And it is as dark as a bottle of ink in there. Have any of you your flashlights?”

“We can make a torch of wood,” said Jack, when it developed that none of them had one of the pocket electric lights.

But just as Jack and the others were about to enter the cave the mutterings of thunder which had been increasing, culminated in such a clap that the girls, involuntarily placed their hands over their ears.

“Come on! Run for the bungalow!” cried Cora. “Else we’ll be caught in a terrible storm! It’s starting to rain now.”

Some hot drops hissed down, the prelude to an almost tropical fury of the elements it seemed.

“We can go into the cave,” suggested Paul.

“No!” cried his sister. “You shan’t go in there with this storm coming up. The cave will keep. Come on, let’s run!”

She darted off down the side of the mountain, the other girls following. The boys hesitated a moment, and then, not wishing to desert the girls, even though the latter ran first, they followed.

“We can come back to the cave to-morrow,” said Walter. “It won’t run away. And to explore it well we ought to have the electric lights. Come on.”

Paul and Jack followed him, and they all reached the girls’ bungalow just as the deluge of rain came down.

For an hour or more the storm raged, blinding lightning and deafening thunder succeeding one another. But the bungalow was snug and safe, though once, when a tree was struck not far away, the girls screamed in terror.

That crash, however, seemed to be the culmination of the outburst, for from then on the rain began to slacken, and the thunder died away in muttered rumblings and the lightning became paler and paler until it was only a faint, shimmering light.

Then the dark sky cleared and the sun came out, shining through the storm-riven clouds and warming the ground and trees which were dripping from the vigorous bath.

“We got home just in time,” commented Cora, as they looked out on the ceasing storm. “A little longer on the mountain and we would have been drenched.”

“That cave was a find,” commented Jack. “I want to see what’s in it.”

“Probably nothing more than a hole in the side of the mountain,” commented Bess.

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” voiced Walter. “I wonder if Mr. Floyd knows anything about it?”

It developed that the caretaker did not, though he said there were several small mountain caves in that section, and this was probably one of them that he had not chanced upon.

“Do you think smugglers or pirates might have used it?” asked Hazel, with a smile.

“Hardly pirates,” commented Jack. “Too far from the water. But smugglers might have done so. We’re not so far from the Canadian line.”

“All bosh!” declared Paul. “It’s probably a garage dating from the stone age when the early inhabitants used the dinosaur as a jitney!”

They all laughed at his conceit and talked further of the cave and what they might find in it when they explored it the next day.

Whether it was the severe thunderstorm, or whether it was the culmination of the happenings of the past few weeks was not made clear, but it was certain that the girls, even Cora, were more nervous than they had been at any time yet.

“I – I wish we didn’t have to stay here to-night,” said Belle when supper was over, and they sat out on the porch, gazing into the fast-gathering darkness.

“Why?” asked Cora.

“Because I – I’m afraid. Come now, aren’t you?” she challenged.

“Well, I can’t say I like all the mysterious happenings,” Cora admitted. “And now that we know there is a cave near us – more than one perhaps – and that we don’t know who – or what – may be in them, why, I can’t say it is the most pleasant vacation we have experienced.”

“This bungalow gives me the creeps!” complained Hazel.

“Why not take ours?” suggested Walter. “It’s large enough for you to sleep in, and we’ll take this one. Come on, what do you say?”

“No, not to-night anyhow,” decided Cora. “We’ll keep to our agreement and stay here. Mrs. Floyd will be here with us.”

“And not Mr. Floyd?” asked Belle.

“No, not until later. He has to go to some town meeting I believe, and will come in around midnight. But nothing has happened in the last few days – not even a noise.”

“I’ve heard noises,” confessed Belle.

“What sort?” Jack inquired.

“Oh, sort of rumbling, trembling noises, and they seemed to be away down under the ground. I heard one yesterday, when I came back to get my veil after the others had gone out. It scared me,” Belle added.

“I think the waterfall causes those rumbling noises,” said Walter. “We’ll have to investigate that to-morrow.”

The boys went to their own bungalow, and Mrs. Floyd came in to occupy the small temporary bedroom. Her husband would be in later, she explained, confirming Cora’s information in that respect. The thunderstorm had cooled the rather oppressive air and there was a refreshing breeze blowing as the girls went up to their bedrooms.

Just who awakened first, it would be hard to say. Probably it was Belle, as she was the lightest sleeper. Cora heard her calling, and at the same time she was aware of another disturbance.

“Do you hear it?” asked Belle from her room.

“Yes,” Cora answered. At the same time she could hear Bess and Hazel getting up.

The whole bungalow seemed filled with a roaring, trembling noise, and there was a slight vibration of the building.

“What is it? Oh, what is it?” cried Belle, in hysterical tones.

“I don’t know,” answered Cora. “But I’m going to find out.”

“How?”

“By calling the boys. Mrs. Floyd, are you awake?” Cora demanded, going to the head of the stairs.

“Yes. That noise awoke me.”

“Is Mr. Floyd home?”

“Not yet.”

“Then I’m going to telephone for the boys!”

CHAPTER XXIV – THE SECRET PASSAGE

Hastily donning robes and slippers, the girls gathered about Cora as she rang the electric bell which had been arranged to summon the boys in the other bungalow to the toy telephone. Meanwhile, Mrs. Floyd had arisen and dressed to let in the boys. The rumbling, trembling noise had stopped.

“Oh, why don’t they answer?” cried Cora, impatiently pushing the electric bell button again and again.

Then, through the toy receiver came a faint voice.

“Hello! Hello, there! Is that you, girls? What is the matter?”

“This you, Jack?” Cora asked.

“Yes.”

“Come over as fast as you can! Hurry!”

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Don’t stop to question! Hurry over!” Cora begged. “It’s that terrible noise again. Can’t you hear it?”

“No,” answered Jack. “But we’ll be right over. Come on, fellows!” Cora heard him call to Walter and Paul, as he left the telephone. “The girls are scared.”

“I guess he’d be too, if he heard that noise,” Cora said. “Did you all hear it?” and she appealed to her chums.

“I did,” affirmed Hazel. “It sounded like distant thunder.”

“Could it have been?” asked Mrs. Floyd, who had joined the girls.

“The stars are shining,” reported Belle, looking from a window, shading her eyes with her hands from the light in the room. They had partly dressed and gone down to the living room. There they listened and waited both for a recurrence of the noise and for the approach of the boys.

The latter made their presence known first, fairly running along the graveled way that led from their bungalow, over the rustic bridge, to the girls’ abiding place.

“What’s all the racket about?” demanded Jack, as he and his two chums entered, rather breathless from their run and their hurry in dressing, the hurry showing itself in the absence of collars and ties.

“It’s that noise,” said Cora, her voice trembling slightly. “We heard it again, Jack.”

“Was it so scary?” demanded Paul, looking at his sister.

“It certainly was – too scary for words!” answered Belle. “I’m not going to pass another night in Camp Surprise!”

“It has been a surprise with a vengeance,” declared Bess. “Boys, can’t you do something?” she appealed.

“What’s to be done?” asked Jack. “We’ll have to wait until we hear the noise again, and then we can tell from which direction it comes. Suppose, while we’re waiting, you girls just tell us what you heard.”

They had all heard something different, it developed. At least, they all had a different impression of the noise.

Cora described it as a “trembling roar.”

Bess said it was a rumble, as though a heavy wagon had passed in front of the bungalow.

Belle said it reminded her of a deep, heavy sound, such as she had once heard in a blast furnace.

It was reserved for Hazel to describe accurately the noise, though none of them knew her description was correct until afterward.

“It was like a factory or machine shop next door,” said Paul’s sister. “It seemed to shake the bungalow as though heavy machinery were working.”

“It must be the waterfall,” decided Jack. “Only a large body of water, tumbling down into some chasm, could make a noise like that. There’s no machinery around here. Besides, the waterfall is bigger than ever now, on account of the rain. It must be that.”

“It wasn’t!” declared Cora, though when pressed for reasons to bolster up her denial she could give none. “It wasn’t that sort of noise at all,” she affirmed. “It was more like – ”

“What’s that?” asked Belle so suddenly that the other girls jumped nervously.

It was the sound of a footstep on the porch, a firm, unhesitating footstep.

“I expect that’s my husband,” said Mrs. Floyd.

It was Mr. Floyd, and he was, greatly surprised to see the “whole family up,” as he expressed it.

“What’s the matter?” he asked, looking around on the circle of rather startled faces, ending with his wife’s. “Did you sit up to see how late I got in? Strictly business, young ladies and gentlemen,” he went on, smiling at them. “The committee had considerable to transact, and I had to stay.”

“This is a sort of surprise party,” Cora told him. “Camp Surprise is living up to its name,” and she went on to tell about the noise, the others adding bits here and there.

“Pshaw now! That’s queer!” commented Mr. Floyd. “I have heard them rumblings myself, but I laid ’em to the waterfall. It’s a curious cataract at times.”

“This noise,” began Cora, “isn’t like anything I ever – ”

She paused midway in the sentence, and a strange look grew and spread over her face, as it did over the faces of the others.

“There it is now,” whispered Bess. “That – that noise!”

They all heard it, a dull, rumbling roar that made the bungalow tremble as when a heavy wind blows and vibrates the timbers of a house.

“So that’s what it is!” exclaimed Jack. “This is my first experience.”

“I heard it once, though distantly,” said Walter.

“Listen!” cautioned Cora.

The noise seemed to increase.

“Say, that is curious!” commented Mr. Floyd. “I never noticed that before. Where does it come from?”

Hardly had he spoken than the rumbling ceased, and there came a sharp crash, as though wood had broken somewhere.

“The chimney’s fallen!” cried Mrs. Floyd.

“Nonsense, Eliza,” said her husband. “The crash would be up on the roof if the chimney toppled over. Besides, there’s no wind, and the noise didn’t come from above, it came from – down there!”

He pointed to the floor of the living room, which was of bare boards, with rugs here and there.

“That’s right!” cried Jack. “The crash was below us. It’s under this bungalow somewhere. Up with the floor boards! We’ll get at the bottom of this!”

There was no doubt on that score. Every one in the room was sure the noise had come from under the floor.

“But how could it?” asked Walter. “There’s no cellar to the bungalow; is there?”

“None that I ever heard of,” said Mr. Floyd. “I didn’t live here when the bungalow was built, but I’ve always understood it had no cellar.”

“It hasn’t,” Cora affirmed. “At least none that you can find. There are no cellar stairs and the place seems to rest on piles.”

“But the noise came from down there,” and Jack pointed to the floor. “The only way to find out is to take up the boards. May we, Mr. Floyd?”

“Why, yes, I reckon so. We’ve got to get at the bottom of this. It’s better to spoil the floor than to lose the renting of the bungalow by ghosts scaring tenants away. Take up the boards. I’ll get an axe and a crowbar.”

And so, in the middle of the night, for it was close to twelve o’clock, the strange work of looking under the floor of the bungalow for the source of the queer noise was begun.

“Where shall we start?” asked Jack, when Mr. Floyd had brought the implements.

The caretaker considered a moment.

“If there is some sort of cellar, or space under this bungalow, it must be near the center of the floor, I’m thinking. We’ll begin there. Don’t be afraid of spoiling the floor. I’ll take the responsibility.”

Jack swung the axe vigorously, and, being aided by Walter, soon had removed two or three of the narrow boards. As they were prying on another, a queer thing happened.

A solid section of the floor from the middle of the room suddenly sank down, and then rolled back, exactly as a sliding door rolls, only this door was horizontal instead of vertical. Back it rolled, leaving what was practically a trap in the floor, and as the light shone down this a flight of steps was revealed leading into darkness.

“Great bumblebees!” gasped Jack. “See what we’ve done! Uncovered a secret passage! Now for the solution of the mystery!”

CHAPTER XXV – THE PATCHED TIRE

Crowding around Jack they all gazed down into the opening. For a moment no one spoke. Then Cora softly murmured:

“A secret passage.”

“What else is it?” demanded her brother. “No one knew it was here. You didn’t; did you?” he asked Mr. Floyd.

“Never had the least notion of it. How it got here is a mystery to me.”

“It must have been built in the bungalow, or put in after it was built,” said Bess. “What does it mean? What’s it all about?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” declared Walter.

“You don’t mean to say you’re going down – there!” and Belle, with a dramatic gesture, pointed to the dark opening.