  Grouped together upon the narrow steps of the mine, the five boys stared stupidly at the heavy, nail-studded barrier which stood between them and freedom. “This is some of Slugger Slade’s work!” growled Ned Blake. “What a fool I was to have trusted him!” “Shucks! We can break down this door!” cried Charlie Rogers. “Wait a minute till I get that winch-handle!” and running down the stairs, he quickly returned with the heavy iron crank. Taking the implement and setting himself for a full swing, Ned attacked the door with a rain of blows which sent echoes reverberating down the tunnel like the roll of thunder. The solid oak resisted stubbornly, and as Ned redoubled his efforts, the iron handle snapped short in his hand. “Here’s a sweet mess!” grunted Tommy Beals disgustedly. “Let’s find something for a battering ram,” suggested Dick, starting down the stairs. Diligent search through all parts of the mine failed to discover anything that could be used to force the door, and after a time the boys gave it up. “What’s Slugger’s idea in locking us down here anyhow?” demanded Rogers, as he sat on the dump-car glaring helplessly at the closed door above him. “No doubt he plans to keep us prisoners until he can get word to his rum-running gang,” replied Ned. “There’s several thousand dollars’ worth of liquor stored down here and they don’t want to lose it.” “Then I suppose we’ve got to wait here till they come with a truck and cart the stuff away,” stormed Dick. “Why, before they get around we’ll probably starve to death,” wailed Tommy Beals. “What time is it, anyhow, my watch has run down.” “It’s three o’clock,” yawned Dave Wilbur, consulting his time-piece and stretching out beside Rogers on the dump-car. “This is a bum place to sleep, but at that, it’s better than standing up all night.” “Weary is right,” muttered Charlie Rogers, “we may as well make the best of it. We’re caught like rats in a trap and there’s nothing to do but wait till we’re let out.” Nobody attempted to dispute this dismal fact, and after a time the five “rats” sought the least uncomfortable spots in their decidedly uncomfortable trap and settled down with such patience as they could command. An hour dragged its tedious length away and then Ned Blake roused himself from his place on the stairs. “Fellows,” he began, “we’re caught, as Red says, like rats in a trap. I’m bound to admit that it is the result of my stupidity in giving Slade his freedom and allowing him to turn the tables on us this way.” “Forget it!” growled Charlie Rogers. “You’re no more to blame than the rest of us. We all agreed to let him go. Five dumb-bells—I’ll tell the world!” “Mighty nice of you to talk that way about it, Red,” was the reply, “but it doesn’t change the fact that it was I who led you into this trap. I know this and I’ve been trying to figure some way to get out of it.” “Not a chance,” drawled Dave Wilbur. “We’ll stay right here till somebody comes to let us out—which may be today or tomorrow or next week! ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread’—that’s us!” “Frankly, it’s this question of time that’s worrying me,” admitted Ned. “We could stand it several days without food, but there’s only a limited amount of air in this mine. Five of us use it up pretty fast. It’s getting stuffy up at this end of the tunnel even now and in another twenty-four hours it may become positively dangerous.” “But what can we do?” demanded Beals. “The only way out is through that door!” “Here’s what I was thinking,” replied Ned. “That whisky came down from the surface of the lake and up through the tunnel. I’m wondering if we can’t manage to reverse the process.” “Are you talking about swimming under water to the end of the tunnel and then up to the surface?” cried Rogers. “Why, man, you’re crazy!” “Don’t think of trying such a thing, Ned,” urged Dick, earnestly. “It’s a big hundred yards from where the water begins out to the end and it must be ten yards more to the surface!” “Sure, it is,” asserted Wilbur. “Nobody but a South Sea Islander could stand a chance of getting through.” “I’ll admit that under ordinary circumstances it would be a difficult and maybe an impossible stunt,” agreed Ned, “but I had no idea of attempting to swim any such distance. Let me ask you a question, Dick,” he continued. “After we jumped off the dump-car down there in the tunnel, how long did it take the car to get to the end of the mine?” “Well, I would say about a minute and a half or maybe two minutes,” guessed Dick. “The cable kept running out about that long after the car disappeared below the water—if that’s what you mean.” “Not over two minutes at the most,” was Ned’s comment. “Now that was when the car was empty; if it were loaded, it would run quite a lot faster.” “And you’re talking about letting that dump-car carry us to the submerged end of the tunnel where we can then swim up to the surface?” demanded Rogers. “Not for mine! I haven’t the nerve!” “Gosh! I couldn’t hold my breath two minutes—no, nor one minute to save my life!” gasped Tommy Beals breathless already at the bare suggestion. “Of course, I don’t expect you fellows to try it,” Ned hastened to explain. “I’m certain I can do it. Holding my breath for a full minute or more is easy enough, if I’m not exerting myself during the time, and when I got to the end of the tunnel I’d shoot up to the surface like a cork.” “It’s too risky! Don’t try it, Ned!” pleaded Dick. “Well, I’m not anxious to do it,” admitted Ned. “Here’s what I had planned. It’s now four o’clock; I’ll wait one hour more, and if nobody comes to let us out by then, I’ll get out without their help. By five o’clock the sun will be well up and I’ll be able to see the light above me, which will be a big help in locating the opening and reaching the surface.” “Here’s hoping and praying that Slugger Slade or some of his gang gets here before five o’clock!” muttered Dick Somers. The other three echoed his sentiment, but the hour passed without a sound to break the deathlike silence and, at length, Ned Blake rose and began to remove his outer clothing. “Bring out a dozen cases of bottles and load ’em onto the car,” he directed, and the boys obeyed without a word. After assuring himself that the car was loaded in such a manner as to distribute the weight equally on all four wheels and lessen the chance of it jumping the track, Ned gave his final directions to Tommy Beals, who was to handle the brake on the cable-drum. “Let her run about as you did before, Fatty, until you feel her hit the water,” Ned explained. “The instant you see by the lessening of the drag on the cable that she’s gone under, why take your foot off the brake and let her run as fast as she will. Don’t look so solemn, you fellows. In about fifteen minutes you’ll hear me opening that door for you.” Mounting the car, Ned gave the signal, and as Beals released the brake, the heavily loaded car started and rumbled away down into the blackness with Ned Blake clinging tightly to its forward end. With fascinated eyes the four boys watched the cable as it ran rapidly from the drum of the winch. The instant its slackened speed showed that the car had struck the water, Dave Wilbur jerked out his watch and told off the seconds. “Ten—twenty—thirty—forty—fifty—sixty—seventy—” “She’s down!” shouted Beals as the cable stopped unreeling. “Seventy-six seconds!” announced Wilbur. “Seventy-six, from the time she hit the water.” “A minute and sixteen seconds,” muttered Dick Somers. “It was as long as any hour I ever lived!” and Dick sat down suddenly and buried his face in his hands. |
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