"See here!" he blurted out, "open up an tell a fellow just what you're hinting at, Frank. Do you think it may have been old Josh Kinney who used to camp out here from time to time? If that's so, as he must have toted all his wood from the outside, you're right about there being another entrance to the caves not a great way off which we can find if we hunt systematically." "I've been poking around a bit this morning while you snoozed," continued Frank. "Yes, and what've you discovered to make you look so pleased?" "I suspected it when I saw these ashes, and now I know it's a dead open-and-shut thing." "Whoopee! Do you mean--" blazed out the overjoyed Lanky. "Just what I do!" broke in Frank. "Right now we're in that five-fingered cave we saw marked on the map!" CHAPTER XXIII KEPT UNDER COVER "That's bully news you're giving me, Frank!" exclaimed Lanky Wallace, as he impulsively gripped the hand of his loyal chum and squeezed it. "Let's get busy and try to locate Kinney's treasure chest." "After we've had a bite to eat," Frank told him. "Long ago I made it my habit never, when I could help it, to start a day's work on an empty stomach." They made quite a dent in their slender stock of meat, but both were now quite confident that it was only a matter of a few hours before they would be once more under the blue sky. Frank and Lanky consulted that second little chart, and also conferred together. Then they started to search in the most likely locality. Hours crept past and still the object of all this peering around and testing out all likely nooks in the five-fingered cave seemed to be as far from being discovered as in the beginning of the search. Their stock of torches was growing gradually less and less, so that it began to look rather serious. To be left in utter darkness, without knowing which way to turn in order to gain the outer air, also with hunger commencing to make them uncomfortable! It was not a pleasant outlook, Lanky admitted. Then, just when both boys were of a mind to give up further hunting for the secret hiding place of Kinney's hoard of nuggets, they ran across something that filled them with sudden hope. Lanky managed to stumble over an unseen spur of rock jutting out from the wall low down, and when he threw out his hand to save himself from falling he thrust it into what seemed to be a narrow crevice that neither of them had before noticed. That hand chanced to be clutching the torch, and almost mechanically Lanky leaned forward to thrust the blaze inside the crack. He immediately gave vent to a shout that echoed through the cave and set a dozen startled bats to swooping in circles overhead. "Frank, what d'you think! We've hit it plum center!" he yelled. "Just peep in there and tell me what you see!" "As sure as you live, Lanky, I do believe you stumbled on purpose and knew it was here all the while! Reach in, and see whether we're dreaming or not!" Lanky hastened to follow the suggestion.