Around the shore of the cove the two boys went toward the hut. As they approached it Frank placed his hands to his mouth in the form of a horn, and shouted:

“Oh, Gabe! Oh, Mr. Blake!”

His voice came back in a distinct echo from a distant rocky steep, but that was all the answer he received. The rising breeze stirred the open door, seeming to wave it at the boys in derision, but the air of loneliness about the place was oppressive.

“There’s no one about,” said Frank.

“Not a soul,” agreed Harry.

They reached the cabin and looked in. It had not been occupied for two months, at least.

“Big Gabe is dead or gone,” said Merriwell, with sincere regret. “I hoped to find him here.”

“Well, let’s see if his boat is all right,” came anxiously from Rattleton. “That is what we want to know most.”

Leaving their wheels leaning against a tree, they hastened to the spot where the boat lay moored at a short distance from the shore.

“We’ll have to swim to get it,” said Frank. “It is plain that other boat in which we saw Belmont and the dwarf was used by Gabe to get from the shore to the sailboat.”

Frank stripped off quickly and plunged into the lake, although the water was cold, as he well knew from recent experience.

Out to the boat he swam, came up by her stern, and got in without difficulty, which was a very neat thing to do, as the average boy would have tried to crawl in over the side, with the probable result of upsetting the boat.

“How’s she look, Merry?” called Harry, anxiously.

“O. K.,” answered Frank. “There’s some water in her, but it is a small amount, and the sails are well reefed. They may be somewhat rotten, but we’ll be careful of them.”

“How are we to get our wheels on board?”

Frank stood up and surveyed the bottom, which he could do with ease, because of the unruffled surface of the cove, as the wind did not touch it there.

“There’s a channel leading up to that large rock,” he said. “I’ll bring the boat up there.”

“Look out to not get her aground so she can’t be brought off,” warned Harry. “That would be a scrape.”

“I’ll look out.”

Frank did not find it difficult to get up the anchor, and then, with the aid of a long oar, he guided the boat to the rock.

In the meantime, Harry had hastened to bring the bicycles down to the cove, and they were all ready to be taken on board. This was accomplished, and Harry followed them.

“Now away, away,” he cried. “We’ll set our course for yonder shore.”

“Of course,” punned Frank, and Rattleton made a grimace.

“Bad—very bad,” he said. “That habit has been the cause of more sudden deaths than anything else of which I know.”

Frank laughed, and they pushed the boat from the great rock.

Rattleton set about unfurling the sails and getting them ready for hoisting.

“Are you a sailor, Merry?” he asked, as if struck by a new thought.

“Am I?” cried Frank. “Ha! ha! also ho! ho! Wait a wee, and you shall see what you shall see.”

“Then you have been to sea?”

Frank gave the other boy a look of reproach.

“And you had the nerve to do that after saying what you did about the bad pun I made a short time ago!” he cried. “Rattleton, your crust is something awful!”

They made preparations for running up the sail, saw that the tiller was all right and the rudder worked properly, and looked after other things. The bicycles were in the way, but that could not be helped.

Harry aided Frank in setting the sail, and, with the aid of the oar, the boat was worked out to a point where they could feel the breeze.

“By Jove! this is rather jolly,” commented Rattleton, as they began to make headway. “With a fair wind, we’ll run over there in a short time, and then—then if we can find that girl!”

“My boy, your face is aglow with rapture at the thought,” smiled Frank. “You have been hit a genuine heart blow. Look out that it doesn’t knock you out.”

Away they went, making fair speed, although the boat was decidedly crude and cumbersome.

The mountainous region beyond the lake was wild and picturesque, but, fortunately, the boys found a cut that led down to the very shore of the lake.

They reached a spot where they could run up close to the shore, which enabled them to take their bicycles off without trouble.

The boat was made fast, the sails having been reefed once more, and then the lads deliberately mounted their wheels and attempted to ride into the cut.

This was not so difficult as might be thought, for they found what seemed to be an antelope “run” that led from the shore, and they pedaled along that path.

“It was somewhere in this region that we found the retreat of the gang of money makers when I was here before,” said Frank.

“What’s that? A gang that made money?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose they had some kind of an old hut here-abouts in which they did the work?”

“They had a cave—a most wonderful cave it was said to be. That cave had never been fully explored, and—— By Jove!”

Frank interrupted himself with the exclamation, a strange look having come to his face.

“What is it?” asked Harry.

“I have an idea.”

“Put us on.”

“That cave, my boy—that cave!”

“What about it?”

“It is said that Carter Morris, the queer old miner, lives in some sort of an underground place.”

“That’s right!” cried Rattleton, catching Frank’s meaning, and growing excited.

“He has some sort of mysterious mine.”

“Sure, old man!”

“And he wrote Bernard Belmont that Mildred Morris was buried from the sight of the world.”

“Now, you believe——”

“I do—I believe it possible that man may be occupying the very cave once occupied by the counterfeiters.”

Rattleton was following Frank along the path, and he nearly ran Merriwell down in his excitement.

“You know the way to that cave?” he shouted. “You can find it?”

“I might be able to do so, although I am not sure of it. I can try. Even if we find the cave, we may not find the man and girl there.”

“It is a chance, anyway. It’s the best we can do.”

After they had proceeded into the mountains some distance, Frank began to look for a slope they could scale, so they might get out of the pass.

It was finally found, and, with their wheels on their backs, they labored to the top. Getting down on the other side was even more difficult, but they succeeded.

Then Frank led Harry a wild chase, till Rattleton was pretty well played out. His head had ceased to bleed, and he had removed the handkerchief, but he could feel that the blow had taken not a little of the stamina out of him.

“How long are you going to keep this up, Merry?” he asked.

“We must be somewhere near that cave,” declared Frank. “It is getting toward night. I hoped to be fortunate and find it before dark.”

“If we don’t——”

“There’s another day coming. We have hard bread and smoked beef in the carriers, and we can find water here. We’re not nearly as bad off as we were on the Utah desert.”

“That’s right. That was a bad fix, but we pulled out of it all right. If our clothes were somewhat drier I could regard the approach of night with greater complaisance.”

“Our clothes are nearly dry, and they will be much more so in two hours.”

They continued the restless search, Frank seeming utterly tireless. Rattleton admired him for his resistless energy and unwavering determination and confidence.

Fortune must have smiled on them, for, as they were making their way along a narrow cut, they turned a short corner and beheld the dark mouth of a cave just ahead of them.

Both lads stopped and stood beside their wheels, uttering exclamations of satisfaction.

“Is that it, Frank?” asked Harry.

“It may be one of the entrances to the old cave of the counterfeiters,” answered Merry. “That cave has several mouths. This is not the one I saw, but——”

“It is a cave, and it may be the one we are searching for. Come on!”

“What are you going to do?”

“Go in.”

“We can’t go in without torches.”

“That’s right—dead right! Was so excited I didn’t think of that. But—hooray!—we have found it!”

“Don’t be so sure yet. We’ll go up and look in.”

They approached the mouth of the cave.

Suddenly, as they came near, there was a roar from within, and out of the cave rushed a man whose long hair and beard were white, and whose clothes were rude and worn.

The boys halted in amazement, staring at this man, who also stopped.

Frank spoke to Harry:

“It must be Carter Morris!”

“It is!” cried the old man, whose ears had caught the words. “How do you know me? What right have you to know my name? I am buried—buried from the world!”

“Crazy as a bedbug!” whispered Rattleton.

“Oh, crazy, am I!” sneered the man, much to Harry’s astonishment, for it had not seemed possible he could hear that whisper. “That’s what they think—the fools!”

Rattleton clutched Frank’s wrist.

“Look,” he panted; “she is coming! There she is!”

Out of the darkness within the mouth of the cave advanced the strange girl they had seen in the canoe. She was hatless, and she looked marvelously pretty with her golden hair hanging about her ears and reaching down upon her shoulders.

“Well, she is a fairy!” admitted Merriwell. “If you win that, you’ll be a lucky lad, Rattles.”

“Ha! ha! ha!” harshly laughed the man, without a trace of mirth in face or voice. “That is all they think of, the fools! That is what brings them here! They know you are rich, my dear—they know it! And they seek to win you! But you are dead to the world—dead and buried!”

“Mr. Morris,” said Frank, speaking quietly, “we have a message for the young lady.”

“Bah!” cried the man.

“It is from her brother,” said Frank.

“Bah!” repeated the hermit.

But the girl started forward, crying:

“My brother—what do you know of him?”

The man put out his hand and held her back.

“It is a trick,” he declared—“a shallow trick! They think to fool you that way. Don’t listen to them, child! Let me talk to them.”

Then he turned on the boys, his face dark with anger.

“Go away from here!” he cried. “Every moment you remain here your lives are in danger! If you care to live, go away at once!”

The girl looked frightened.

“We can’t go away till we have delivered our message,” said Frank, calmly, as he started forward.

“Back!” cried the strange old man, flinging out his hand with a warning gesture. “It means death if you advance another step!”

The girl looked more frightened than ever, and the boys halted again.

“The old pirate!” whispered Harry. “We must save her from him somehow, Frank! I know he is detaining her against her will.”

Again that harsh, mirthless laugh.

“You know a great deal,” sneered the man; “but you do not know enough to go away and save your lives! You do not know my power, but you shall feel it!”

The girl cried out and started to lift a hand. Then the man stepped to the right and touched the wall of stone.

To Frank and Harry it seemed that the mountains fell on them and beat them down with a great blow that stretched them helpless and senseless on the ground!