The seat of the rennwolf was convenient for carrying a
coat or any light luggage, and it was often used to give a friend a very
exhilarating ride.
[Illustration: Fig. 181. The Ice Creeper.]
CHAPTER XV.
THE SUBTERRANEAN CLUB.
I am afraid we were not very glad to get back to school that fall. It
seemed very hard to give up the sport we had been having, and our heads
were brimful of new schemes which we could hardly wait to put into
practice. But we soon learned that there are many things that could be
done during recreation hours at school. We had intended building a cave on
our island that summer, but our vacation came to an end before we got
around to it. There seemed no reason why we shouldn't dig one in the woods
at the back of the schoolhouse.
A Cave-in.
Bill had read somewhere that if you dig a cave under a tree the roots of
the tree will support the ground on top and make a natural and substantial
roof. It sounded very reasonable, we thought; in fact, we never questioned
the truth of the statement, because we had somehow gotten the notion that
books were never wrong, and that whatever was set up in type must surely
be so. But events proved that the man who wrote that book had never
attempted to build a cave in the manner he described, at least not in the
loose, sandy soil of south Jersey.
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