Presently they came to a small opening or glade amid the pines, and there before their eyes were several deep excavations in the ground.
“Look!” said the Texan in a surprised voice. “There are the holes Granger told us about—the holes made by people seeking to recover some of the plunder Old Lonely was supposed to have buried.”
Only a few moments did they linger there. The thunder was growing louder, and they hurried on until they came into what apparently had once been a well-beaten path. Following this path, they reached another and much larger tree-surrounded open spot, which seemed to be located near the center of the island. And there before them they saw the hut of the old hermit.
It stood at one side of the opening, close beneath the shadows of a thick cluster of pines which were taller than the other trees upon the island. Indeed, so close to these tall trees had the cabin been built that, having sagged and lurched like a person overcome by age and disease, it was now supported by the very largest tree of the group, against which it leaned. Only for this tree, the crude, ill constructed building must have long ago fallen to the ground. A part of the roof had caved in, leaving a ragged hole, and the remainder seemed likely to drop at the slightest provocation. In one side of the cabin there was a small square window, in which remained no fragment of glass or sash. In the front of the cabin the remnants of a stout door made from hewn timbers still hung upon heavy rusty hinges.
So lonely, wretched and repellant was the appearance of this ruin that the three boys, who stood gazing upon it in silence, were all deeply moved, and they wondered that a human being could have lived in such a place for five long years with no friends or neighbors and only a dog as his companion. Truly, it seemed that no one save a hunted criminal, in constant dread of the prison from which he had escaped, would have chosen to dwell there, aloof from other human beings and shut in by the somber pines which protected him from inquisitive eyes.
The silence and gloom of the island, the sight of the old hut, the distant mutterings of thunder, and a subtle, electrical tension in the air combined to give the young investigators a most unpleasant sensation of nervousness, which was revealed by the sudden cackling burst of laughter that came from Springer’s lips—laughter that was suppressed almost as suddenly as it began.