"
The uprooted trees lay on one side of the
mountain trail, perhaps a mile from the mouth of
the cave which had been covered over, entombing
the Beecher party. Leaving the mules in
charge of one of the Indians, Professor Bumper
and his friends, accompanied by Goosal, approached
the fallen trees. As they neared them
they saw that in falling the trees had lifted with
their roots a large mass of earth and imbedded
rocks that had clung to the twisted and gnarled
fibers. This mass was as large as a house.
"Look at the hole left when the roots pulled
out!" cried Ned. "Why, it's like the crater of
a small volcano!" he added. And, as they stood
on the edge of it looking curiously at the hole
made, the others agreed with Tom's chum.
Professor Bumper was looking about, trying
to ascertain if there were any evidences of the
earthquake in the vicinity, when Tom, who had
cautiously gone a little way down into the excavation
caused by the fallen trees, uttered a cry of surprise.
"Look!" he shouted. "Isn't that some sort of
tunnel or underground passage?" and he pointed
to a square opening, perhaps seven feet high and
nearly as broad, which extended, no one knew
where, downward and onward from the side of
the hole made by the uprooting of the trees.
"It's an underground passage all right," said
Professor Bumper eagerly; "and not a natural
one, either. That was fashioned by the hand
of man, if I am any judge. It seems to go right
under the mountain, too.
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