"Wow!" ejaculated Tom, after scratching his hand and his leg. "This is something prime, I must confess!"
"What I call hunting a treasure with a vengeance," added Dick, dryly.
"I move we go back," came from Sam. "We seem to be stuck in more ways than one."
"Perhaps it is better traveling just beyond," declared Dick. "I am not going to turn back just yet anyway."
He took the lead, breaking down the thorny bushes as best he could, and Sam and Tom followed closely in his footsteps. It was rather dark among the bushes and almost before the three knew it they had fallen headlong into a hollow.
"Well, I never!"
"This is coming down in a hurry!"
"Is this the treasure cave?"
Such were the exclamations of the three lads as they picked themselves up out of the dirt, which, fortunately for them, was soft and yielding. Nobody had been hurt, for which they were thankful.
The hollow was about fifty feet in diameter and half that depth in the center. On the opposite side were more bushes and rocks, and then a thicket of tall trees of a variety that was strange to them.
