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Rh great care. On one side, a portion of the stones was set in squarely.

"This looks as if they had at one time closed some sort of a passageway here," remarked Dick. "I should like to know what is beyond."

"Can't we pick out one or two stones?"

"We can try."

The candle was set down on the stone flooring, close to the wall, and the two lads started to work without delay. In a corner of his jacket, Dick found an old jack-knife that had not been taken away from him, and this he used on the mortar. Sam had nothing but a long, rusty iron nail, so their progress was necessarily slow.

"Don't seem to be making much headway," observed Sam, after pegging away for a while. "Wish we had a hammer and a cold chisel."

"If we used a hammer they could hear us, Sam."

At last they had one stone loose and pulled it out of the wall. Holding up the light, they saw that there was a wall of plain dirt behind it.

"Beaten!" muttered the youngest Rover, and a disappointed look came over his face. "Dick, we have had our labor for our pains."

"I am not so sure of that, Sam."

"Why not, I'd like to know? That doesn't look much like a passageway."