“I’m going in,” said Rodney. “Let’s all go in, so that at least we can say we’ve done so.”
“Lot of good that will dud-do us,” muttered Springer.
“Here goes,” said Grant, stepping inside.
Moved by a sudden desperate impulse, Piper pushed Springer aside and followed Rodney.
“If you’re afraid,” he flung back at Phil, “you don’t have to come; you can stay out.”
“Who’s afraid?” indignantly snapped Springer. “I guess I’ve gug-got as much nerve as you have.”
He entered also, and the three boys stood there in the hut of the old hermit. Their feet were on the bare ground, for there had never been a floor.
Dimly, at one side of the hut, they could see the framework of a bunk, on which, doubtless, Old Lonely had drawn his last breath, with the faithful dog watching at his side. A chimney, made of stones and clay mortar, had, with the lurching of the hut, broken in two halfway to the roof, and it now seemed ready to come tumbling down in one mass. The stones of the fireplace had been torn up, and doubtless this was the work of those who had fancied it possible some of the man’s plunder might be found beneath them.
“Looks to me lul-like the old shanty is liable to tut-tumble down almost any minute,” whispered Springer chokingly. “I don’t want it to dud-drop on my head.”
Grant lifted his hand. “Listen!” he urged.
With lips parted, they did not breathe for a few moments, and their ears were strained to hear any unusual sound. What they heard seemed to be the dull, muffled regular ticking of a clock coming from some hidden spot which they could not locate.
In the semi-darkness the whites of their eyes shone distinctly as they turned significant glances upon one another. Granger had told them of this mysterious ticking, and it brought vividly to their minds his description of the finding of the dead man with his clock beating off the seconds upon a shelf above the bunk. Perhaps it was the electricity in the atmosphere that produced a tugging sensation at the roots of their hair. Springer’s eyes rolled toward the open doorway, through which he longed to dash, being restrained only by fear that such an action would subject him to the joshing of his campmates. Piper was scarcely less eager to depart.