  Dick Kent regained consciousness slowly. His head pained severely, and as he passed his hand through his hair his fingers encountered something warm and sticky. All was silent in the canyon. He sat up with a start, all coming back to him—the mysterious voice from the canyon wall, the surprise attack, the blow that had felled him. “Sandy! Sandy!” he shouted hoarsely. But the dark canyon gave back his voice in a hollow echo. There was no answer. “Where have they gone?” Dick wondered. “Have they been killed or captured?” He got dizzily to his feet and stumbled along the canyon, feeling his way. Almost immediately, he felt a depression in the rock. In the starlight a dark hole yawned in the wall. “The cave!” he exulted. Just then he stumbled over something solid, yet yielding. Groping about his feet, he recoiled in horror. It was the face of a man! In the starlight he finally made out the body, and saw that it was not one of his party. Again Dick called out Sandy’s name, but only the echo of his voice from the yawning cavern answered him. Dick’s head was clearing now. He thought swiftly and concluded his companions must have gone into the cavern in search of Walter MacClaren. He turned in and groped his way along, calling every now and then. Once he thought he heard a shout and stopped, but all was silent. He had a few matches in his pocket and he drew one out and lighted it. He found himself in a large cave, evidently formed by the erosion of water. The roof of the cavern was some six feet higher than his head. Where he was standing there seemed but one passage. “Well, I can’t get lost if there’s only the main passage,” Dick decided, and started on boldly, feeling his way in the blackness. The cavern slanted downward slightly, and leading forward fairly straight, Dick made good time, though he tested every bit of footing to make certain he did not step off into a hole, or run into an obstruction. Presently he could hear running water, and as the sound grew louder, he lighted another match. There was no disturbance of air and the flame burned steadily. Dick could see that the cavern branched at this point. Down one passage a swift stream of dark water flowed; the other was dry. About to take to the cavern that was dry underfoot, Dick heard a shout somewhere in the cave before him. He thrilled as he recognized Sandy’s voice. “Sandy, Sandy, here I am!” he answered at the top of his lungs, hurrying down the cavern from which he believed the voice had come. Once more he heard Sandy’s shout, but this time it was fainter. Then he heard it no longer. “There must be tracks if anyone has passed here,” Dick thought, and striking a match, stooped down. Plainly, in the moist floor of the cavern, were the tracks of moccasins. But they were directed both forward and back, and meant very little. Thinking to catch Sandy before he was too far away, Dick hastened forward with less caution. He had advanced some fifty yards, when of a sudden the earth gave way under him. His cry of terror was drowned by the sound of falling stones and gravel, as he pitched downward. His clutching hands encountered a rim of solid rock. With a painful jerk he stopped his fall, dangling there by his fingers over a chasm he knew not how deep. Once he regained his breath and sense, he endeavored to pull himself up. But he could not quite make it. The hole bulged outward under his feet and, kick and thresh as he would, he could not get a foothold anywhere. The rim he was clinging to was so narrow that it was impossible for him to hold his body up on it even if he pulled himself up by the hands. He realized that he was part way down the hole, hanging to the conical wall. Dick’s struggles slowly weakened. His head was paining him severely. He realized that he could not hang on much longer, yet gritting his teeth, he clung on while his muscles burned and his fingers grew numb. With his last remaining strength, he shouted. But it seemed that his voice was deadened by the formation of the hole, as if he had shouted into a barrel. But again and again he raised his voice, though it grew weaker and weaker. He did not know whether he imagined it or not, but he thought his last outcry received an answer. Slowly he was losing consciousness. It seemed that he could hear the pad, pad of moccasins and more voices. A hand grasped his wrists, then he gave out. When once more Dick awakened he found himself in a dimly lighted underground room. Some one was pouring something hot between his teeth. “Sandy!” he started up, looking into his chum’s happy face. “Greetin’s, lad,” called Malemute Slade, smiling down from the other side of him, “you’ve had a tough time of it.” “I thought it was all over with as far as I was concerned,” replied Dick. “Uncle Walter is here, but he’s pretty sick,” Sandy was telling him. “We found him in this room, almost dead from starvation. He seems to be a little better since we fed him some hot broth.” Dick raised up, his aching head swimming. Across the room, watched over by Toma, on a heap of balsam boughs, he saw a bearded man, haggard of face. It was Walter MacClaren. “I guess I can stand on my pins now,” declared Dick. “But where did you all go right after I was knocked out?” “The devils drove us right into the cave,” volunteered Malemute Slade. “It was a running fight till I climbed on a shelf of rock an’ dropped down on the beans of a couple of ’em. I cracked their pates, then we choked the other one till he told us where the lad’s uncle was. Me—I guess I’ve got about all I want of fightin’ for today.” “I heard you shouting,” Sandy explained, “but you were in the wrong branch of the cavern. I had to go clear down to the fork before I found where you were. You had just about let go of the rock. I was scared to death when I had pulled you out. I struck a match—and say!—that hole didn’t seem to have any bottom.” Dick shuddered, but smiled grimly. He had had a close shave—they had all had a close shave—but things had come out right in the end. Malemute Slade had located the store of food kept by MacClaren’s guards, and they sat down and had a bite to eat. Then, they all gathered anxiously around Walter MacClaren. With eyes shining, Sandy stooped forward and patted his uncle’s hand. “Everything is all right now,” the youth muttered happily. “I’m sure that Uncle Walt will get better.” For several minutes they stood there in the half-light, looking down at the recumbent figure of the man, whose life they had saved barely in the nick of time. Except for their quiet breathing and the low trickle of water in an alcove close at hand, the deep hush remained unbroken. Then, unexpectedly, MacClaren stirred, muttering in his sleep. His eyes blinked open. His gaze wavered from one to the other of the little company gathered around him, and slowly a smile played across his lips. “Up in a few days,” he managed to articulate weakly. “Thanks—everyone of you! I’ll be feeling fine in the morning.” Then, with another smile, he rolled over on his side and went back to sleep. In a surge of new-found happiness, Dick nodded significantly at Sandy, and, arm-in-arm, they turned quietly and tip-toed out of the room. THE END |
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