The printed cross-piece on the traffic sign
joggled around so that just as he plunged his mouth into the sandwich
the word GO made an appropriate announcement to his comrades. It is
hard to say what might have happened if Townsend Ripley had not turned
the sign so that it said STOP just as Pee-wee consumed the last
mouthful.
"Isstrucsmlikewood," ejaculated Pee-wee, consuming the last mouthful.
"Issoundlkbo--boards!"
Billy was quick to raise the bar of the traffic sign and plunge it down
again. It was certainly no tentacle of root that the probing bar
struck, but something hard, yet ever so slightly yielding, something
which gave forth a hollow sound.
It was easy to explore America after Columbus had shown the way and it
was a simple matter now for Townsend, with the little shovel, to dig a
hole three or four feet deep about the traffic sign. The boys all
kneeled about, peering in as if buried treasure were there, until an
area of muddy wood was revealed. Roly Poly knocked it with a rock and
the noise convinced them that the wood was of considerable area and
that probably _nothing was beneath it_.
"Well--what--do--you--know--about--that?" Billy asked incredulously.
"Jab it down somewhere else," said Brownie.
Pee-wee moved the metal rod a yard or so distant and plunged it in the
ground again. There was the same hollow sound. For a moment they all
sat spellbound, mystified. Then, as if seized by a sudden thought,
Brownie hurried to the edge of the little island, exploring with his
hands.
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