The Motor Girls at Camp Surprise Part 37

"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.

"Why shouldn't we go down there?" asked Paul. "It's nothing but a cellar."

"Cellar!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jack. "We'll find this more than a cellar I'm thinking!"

"Well, the steps are just like cellar stairs," said Paul.

"Except they're of stone," added Walter, "and that pa.s.sage isn't going to prove as prosaic as a cellar, I'm thinking."

"How did you come to open it, Jack?" asked Hazel.

"That's what I can't tell you," was the answer. "It seemed to open of itself when the axe, or something, hit on the hidden spring. It's a secret door to a secret pa.s.sage, and the land knows what we may find at the end."

"Why, it's just like in a book or a play!" gasped Belle.

"More like a play," said Cora. "They have sliding doors like this on the stage where the spirits appear and disappear."

"That's it!" cried Jack, as if an idea had suddenly come to him.

"What's what?" Walter demanded.

"This is where the spirits came from-the spirits that have been having fun with the furniture," Jack went on. "Don't you see? They came up through this secret door, did what they pleased, and went down again, closing the door after them by means of some secret mechanism."

"You're not so far wrong at that," remarked Paul, examining the queer sliding door in the floor with a mechanic's eye. "This is a pretty piece of work. You seem to have smashed the operating part of it with your axe, Jack, or at least the part of it that opened the door from this side. It slides back and forth though," and Paul rolled the section of the flooring to and fro.

"Don't close it!" cried Walter. "You might shut it so we couldn't get it open again. We want to explore that pa.s.sage."

"That's what!" came from Jack. "This is where the furniture-movers came from all right."

"Though why they should want to upset chairs is more than I can account for," commented Walter.

"We'll find out when we go down there," suggested Paul. "Wait until I take a look at this apparatus. We don't want it closing over our heads after we get down there."

The sliding door, or rather the section of flooring, was comparatively simple in arrangement. It was made so that it could be dropped down two inches, and then it could be rolled under the floor on small steel wheels, which ran on projecting strips of wood.

As Paul had said, Jack, by a blow of his axe, had destroyed the spring that controlled the mechanism, but this very chance blow of the implement had revealed the secret. Probably there was one certain board which, when pressed on, or shifted, operated the sliding door. And so cleverly was it fitted into the floor, and so tight was the joining, that the presence of it would never have been seen. Only by chance had they happened upon it.

"Well, who's going down?" asked Jack, as they stood looking into the opening. "We'll need lights, though."

"I have my flash," said Walter. Paul, it developed, had his also. Both were powerful pocket electric torches, with dry storage batteries.

"We'll all go," suggested Paul.

"No you won't!" cried his sister. "We're not going to be left here alone, with that queer noise likely to happen at any time."

"I guess there won't be any more noise, now that we have discovered this," said Jack, significantly. "This is where it came from all right."

"But what caused it?" asked Bess.

"That's what we've got to find out," said Walter. "Come on, boys. Into the secret pa.s.sage!"

"I'll stay with you girls," said Mr. Floyd. "Let the boys investigate all they like. But this sure does beat me! To think this bungalow had this concealed under the floor all the while, and I never knew it."

"No wonder this was named Camp Surprise," said Cora.

"I don't believe even them folks that give it that name suspected anything like this," Mrs. Floyd remarked.

"We'll take all the surprise out of it before we're through," Jack said, as he started down the stone steps. Walter and Paul followed, their flashes switched on. The stone steps proved to be made of cement well moulded, and there were ten of them, which led to a flat place under the bungalow, the floor of which was now three feet above the boys' heads.

They found themselves standing in a rectangular s.p.a.ce, with heavy planks on the sides.

"Is it just a cellar?" called Mr. Floyd from up above, where he stood at the edge of the opening, with the girls and his wife.

"There's a long narrow pa.s.sage leading off somewhere," Jack called back.

"We'll investigate. It doesn't seem to be just a cellar though."

"Be careful," warned Cora, as the boys pa.s.sed out of sight of those who were watching.

Jack, Walter and Paul found themselves in what was practically a planked pa.s.sageway, about four feet wide and eight feet in height. There was a musty, damp smell to it, and when they had walked on a few feet over the hard-packed dirt floor, Jack said:

"This goes beyond the bungalow."

"What do you mean?" asked Walter.

"I mean that we have pa.s.sed beyond the limits of the bungalow. This pa.s.sage extends back under the ground, perhaps into the mountain."

"Maybe right into that cave we found to-day," suggested Paul.

"It might be," agreed Walter. "There's something queer about this-something big, too. Keep on, and we'll find where this pa.s.sage leads to. It's been built some time, that's evident."

This was shown by the fact that the planking on the sides and overhead was old, and rotted in some places. And the ground underfoot was packed so hard that it gave no evidences of footprints or other marks.

Wondering what lay before them, the boys pressed eagerly forward. And then, after a sudden turn, the pa.s.sage came to an abrupt end. They found themselves up against a stone wall, a veritable, and not figurative one.

"Well, what do you know about this!" exclaimed Jack in chagrin.

"This is the end," said Paul.

"Perhaps not," a.s.serted Walter. "This pa.s.sage must lead somewhere.

n.o.body would go to all this work making it, only to block it off in this fashion. And it's blocked off solidly enough, too," he added as he banged his fist against the stone. Like the steps it seemed to be of cement.

"Isn't there any way of opening that?" asked Jack.

"There doesn't seem to be," Paul said, examining it closely. "Looks to be pretty solid."