The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House

practice it on you, will you? You're the first one I've seen since I learned it who was so much heavier than I." Slim consented amiably enough and Justice proceeded with a series of operations that rolled his big antagonist around on the floor like a meal sack. "Don't make so much noise, boys!" commanded Katherine, putting a warning finger to her lips. "Don't you see that Sylvia has fallen asleep? Go on out into the hall and do your wrestling tricks out there." Slim and Justice removed themselves to the hall and continued their wrestling, and the Captain abandoned the books to watch them and cheer them on. "Bet you can't back him all the way up the stairway!" said the Captain, as Justice forced Slim up the first step. "Bet I can!" replied Justice, and then began a terrific struggle, science against bulk. Slim fought every inch of the way, but, nevertheless, went up steadily, step by step. Sahwah and Katherine, drawn by the Captain's admiring exclamations at Justice's feat, also abandoned the books and came out to watch. Justice got Slim as far as the landing, and there Slim got his arms wound around the stair post and anchored himself effectively. One step above the landing was as far as Justice could get him. Justice leaned over him and tried another trick to break his grip on the post and the two were see-sawing back and forth when suddenly the Captain gave a yell that made Justice loosen his hold on Slim and ask in a scared voice, "What's the matter?" "The landing!" gasped the Captain. "Look at the landing!" Justice looked, and the others looked, and they all stood speechless with amazement, for the stair landing was doing something that they had never in all their born days seen a stair landing do before. It was sliding out of its place, sliding out over the bottom flight of stairs as smoothly and silently as though on oiled wheels. The five stood still and blinked stupidly at the phenomenon, unable to believe their eyes. The landing came out until there was a gap of about two feet between it and the wall, and then noiselessly came to a stop. In the opening thus made they could see the top of an iron ladder set upright against the wall below. Sahwah rallied her stunned senses first. "The secret passage!" she cried triumphantly. "Daggers and dirks!" exclaimed the Captain. "What made it open up?" asked Katherine curiously. "Where is the spring that works it?" Justice and the Captain shook their heads. "The post!" exclaimed Slim, mopping the perspiration from his brow. "I was pulling at it for dear life when all of a sudden something clicked inside of it. Then the Captain yelled that the stair landing was coming out. The spring that works it is in the landing post!" Slim reached out and tugged away at the post again, but nothing happened. Then he got hold of the carved head and began to twist it and it turned under his hands. There was a click, faint, but audible to the eagerly listening ears, and the landing began to slide smoothly back into place. In a moment the opening was closed, and the landing was apparently a solid piece of carpentry. "Whoever invented that was a genius!" exclaimed Justice in admiration. "And all the while we were trying to find a secret passage through the walls by tapping on the panels! If it hadn't been for Slim we could have spent all the rest of our lives looking for it and never would have found it, for we never in all the wide world would have thought of twisting the head of that stair post. Slim, you weren't born in vain after all." "See if you can make it open up again," said Sahwah. Slim twisted the head of the post, and presently there came the now familiar click and the floor slid out with uncanny quietness. "Let's go down!" said the Captain, going to the edge of the opening and looking in. "What's down there?" asked Katherine. "Nothing but space," replied the Captain, straining his eyes to peer into the darkness, "at least that's all I can see from here. Give me your flashlight, Slim, I'm going down." Slim handed him his pocket flash and the Captain began to descend the ladder. He counted twelve rungs before he felt solid footing under him. He found himself in a tiny room about six feet square, whose walls and floor were of stone. The top was open to allow the passage of the ladder. The Captain figured out that he was standing level with the floor of the basement and that the space above the opening at the top of the little room was the space under the stairway. There was a door in the outside wall, next to the ladder. "What's down there?" asked Sahwah from above. "Just a little place with a door in it," replied the Captain, retracing his steps up the ladder. "The passage isn't inside the house at all," he reported when he reached the top. "It's _outside_. There's a door down there that probably opens into it. I'm going to get my coat and see where the passage leads to." "We'll all go with you," said Sahwah, and it was she who went down the ladder first when the expedition started. The Captain came next, carrying a lantern he had found in the kitchen. At the bottom of the ladder he lit the lantern. The first thing its light fell upon was a broken glass jar, lying in a corner, and from it there extended across the floor a bright red stream. Sahwah recoiled when she saw it, but the Captain stooped over and streaked his finger through it. "Paint!" he exclaimed. "Red paint." "Oh!" said Sahwah. "It looked just like blood. Why--that's what must have made the footprints on the stairs! The man must have stepped in this paint! He came in through this passage!" The other three had come down by that time, and they all looked at each other in dumb astonishment. How clear it all was now! The footprints beginning under the stair landing--the mystery connected with the entrance of the intruder--they all fitted together perfectly. "The paint's still sticky," said the Captain, examining his finger, which had a bright red daub on the end. "It must have been spilled there quite recently." "The burglar must have spilled it himself," said Katherine. "But how on earth would a burglar know about this secret entrance?" marveled Sahwah. The others were not prepared to answer. "Maybe Hercules told somebody," said Justice. "But Hercules doesn't seem to know about it himself," said Katherine. "He _says_ he doesn't, but I'll bet he does, just the same," said Justice. "Hercules wouldn't tell any burglar about this way of getting into the house!" Sahwah defended stoutly. "He's as true as steel. If anybody told the burglar it was somebody beside Hercules." "Maybe the burglar discovered the other end of the passage himself, by accident, just as we did this end," said Slim. "Come on," said the Captain impatiently, "let's go and see where that other end is." "Wait a minute, what's this," said Justice, spying a long rope of twisted copper wire hanging down close beside the ladder. This rope came through the opening above them; that was as far as their eyes could follow it. Its beginning was somewhere up in the space under the stairs. "Pull it and see what happens," said Slim. "I bet it works the slide opening from below here," said Justice. He gave it a vigorous pull and they heard the same click that had followed the twisting of the stair post. In a moment the light that had come down through the opening vanished, and they knew that the landing had gone back into position. Another pull at the rope and it opened up again. "Pretty slick," commented Justice. "It works two ways, both coming and going. A fellow on the inside could get out, and a fellow on the outside could get in, without the people in the house knowing anything about it." "Are you coming now?" asked the Captain. "I'm going to start." He opened the door in the outer wall as he spoke. It swung inward, crowding them in the narrow space in which they stood. A rush of cold air greeted them. The Captain held the lantern in front of him and peered out into the darkness. "There are some steps down," he said. He stepped over the threshold and led the way. Six steps down brought them to the floor of a rock-lined passage, a natural tunnel through the hill. "Carver Hill must be a regular stone quarry," said Justice. "All the cellar walls of Carver House are made of slabs of stone like this, and so is the foundation." "There are big stones cropping out all over the hill," said the Captain. "It's a regular granite monument. What a jolly tunnel this is!" "And what a gorgeous way of escape!" remarked Justice admiringly. "But what need would there be of an underground way of escape?" asked Katherine wonderingly. "What were the people escaping from?" "This house was built in the days of the Colonies," replied Justice sagely, "and the Carvers were patriots. That probably put them in a pretty tight position once in a while. No doubt they concealed American soldiers in their home at times. This passage was probably built as a means of entrance and escape when things got too hot up above. British troops may have been quartered in the house, or watching the outside. What a peach of a way this was to evade them!" he exclaimed in a burst of admiration. "I wish I'd lived in those times," he went on, with envy in his tone. "They didn't keep fellows out of the army on account of their throats then. What fun a soldier must have had, getting in and out of this house, right under the nose of the British! Suppose they suspected he was in the house and came in to search for him? He'd just turn the post on the stairs, and click! the landing would slide open and down the ladder he'd go and out through this passage. The enemy would never discover where he went in a million years." "Come on, let's see where this passage comes out," urged the Captain, and started ahead with the lantern. The passage sloped steeply downward, with frequent turns and twists. "We're going down the hill," said the Captain. "Whoever heard of going down the _inside_ of a hill," said Sahwah. "It's like going through that passage under Niagara Falls," said Slim, "only it's not quite so wet." After another sharp turn and a steep drop they came out in a good-sized chamber whose walls, floor and ceiling were all of rock. "It's a cave!" shouted the Captain, and his voice echoed and re-echoed weirdly, until the place seemed to be filled with dozens of voices. A cold draught played upon them from somewhere, and, although they all had on sweaters and caps, they shivered in the chilly atmosphere. There was no glimmer of light anywhere to indicate an opening to the outside. The light of the lantern fell upon a wooden bench and a rough table, both painted bright red. On the table stood two tall bottles, thickly covered with dust, and between them was a grinning human skull with two cross bones behind it. Katherine and Sahwah involuntarily jumped and shrieked when they saw it. "Somebody died down here!" gasped Sahwah. "Nonsense!" said Justice. "It was Uncle Jasper playing pirate. See, there's his chest over there." Against the rocky wall stood a large wooden chest, likewise painted bright red, with a huge black skull and cross bones done on its lid. "That must be Uncle Jasper's 'Dead Man's Chest,' that he mentions in his diary," said Sahwah. "Of course, this is the pirates' den where he and Tad played." The five looked around them with interest at this playroom of the two boys of long ago, its treasures living on after they were both dead and gone. Truly the den was a place to inspire terror in the heart of a luckless captive. Skulls and cross bones were painted all over the rocky walls, grinning reflections of the one on the table. Sahwah and Katherine