Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 117: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MYSTERY FARM. terrupted them, and hurrying out they found old Mr. Bradley peering anxiously in at the front door. “Land,” he exclaimed, a look of relief spreading over his rugged face. “I thought you’d gone an’ disappeared, too. Any news?” Graham told him of his discovery and conjectures. “Tt might be so,” | Bradley admitted doubtfully. “I guess the best thing would be to telephone to Cal Gilson’s granite quar- ry for two or three of his hard rock men. They’ve got drills and everything and could be here in half an hour. But how about the house? Won’t that blow up, too?” “Hang the house!” replied Dick. “ Be- sides, I’m enough of an engineer, I reckon, to blow out that rock without much dam- age. You telephone, Mr. Bradley.” Three hours later a group of half a dozen men and one woman stood outside the gar- den gate of the old Dennet house, anxiety and suspense depicted upon at least three of their faces. Ruth, the yellow cat in her arms, clung to her father; Dick, a small box, from which wires led into the house—at his feet, looked questioningly about. ‘ All ready?” he asked sharply. “ Fire away,” answered the foreman of the quarry gang. Graham bent over the box. The others held their breath. For a fraction of a second nothing hap- pened; then came a dull, sullen detonation; the ground trembled beneath their feet; the windows of the house rattled, and from the kitchen came a single sharp crash as some insecure piece of crockery fell to the floor— then—the little group looked at each other with faces of blank amazement, for in place of the silence that should have followed, a low, muffled, but steady roar, came to their ears. Except for its unexpectedness there was nothing terrifying in the sound. Its origin could not be mistaken. It was the roar of a distant waterfall. Led by Dick, regardless of his own previ- ous warning to wait until the gases of the explosive had dissipated, the entire party crowded into the house; but there another 743 surprise greeted them, for the air was cold, damp, dead, and a heavy earthy smell per- vaded everything. It was the atmosphere of a long closed cellar intensified. Without a word Dick led the way below, the muffled roar of the distant falls growing plainer as they descended, and there he paused, the others crowding around him, staring at the third surprise that awaited them. Dick had placed his charges skillfully; he had hoped to so split and shatter the stone trapdoor—if it was a trap—that the pieces would drop down inside, but here, fully a third of the shelving stone had dis- appeared. Before them was a great black hole, ten or twelve feet in diameter, leading down- ward at a steep but not impossible angle. How far it went they could not see, for their lanterns illumined it for but a few feet. ‘“* Come on!” cried Dick, eagerly spring- ing forward. ‘“‘ Leave a lantern here to guide us. We can’t stop now.” For the first few yards the débris of the fallen wall impeded them, but after that the path led smoothly downward, between walls of rough granite. Evidently it was a natural fissure, caused ages ago by some wondrous prehistoric upheaval, and as they walked the roar of the water grew in vol- ume, For a quarter of a mile the tunnel con- tinued almost straight, and ever downward, until they were fully a thousand feet be- neath the surface; in some places the path was so narrow that two could not walk abreast, in others ten yards across, until at last from the narrowest spot they had yet come to, they emerged suddenly into the most wondrous subterranean cavity they had ever seen. They stood upon a broad ledge in a vast cavern, so vast that the lights of their lan- terns did not penetrate to roof or sides, and. fifty feet below them flowed a broad river; swiftly the black water ran, to where, a_ few hundred feet away, it broke into white foam, and plunged with a mighty roar into some deep crevasse. : But Dick did not pause; taking a lan- tern from one of the men, he set it by the opening into the tunnel, and beckoning the COMmicbooks.com