"Excuse me, I'd rather climb out the way we came in."
"It certainly doesn't look very inviting."
The two boys found themselves in an irregular opening of the rocks, fifty feet wide and perhaps twice that in length. On one side was the smooth slope down which they had come; on the other a dark hole that looked as if it might lead to some bottomless pit. A jagged rock in the center of the underground chamber had been the means of stopping them from dropping to the unknown depths below them.
"We were lucky to hit this rock," said Dave, with something like a shiver. "If we hadn't" He did not finish.
"Let us get out. It gives me the creeps to stay here," returned his chum.
"All right, Roger, I'm willing. But it is going to be hard work crawling back, those rocks are so smooth."
"We've got to get back!"
"I can't hold the light and climb too. And if I place it on the rocks it may roll away and go down into that hole," went on our hero.
"Oh, put it in your pocket again and we'll try to climb back in the dark. We know the direction."
Dave did as his chum suggested, and then commenced a climb that neither of the lads ever for-
