The Scouts paid no attention to his mutterings. Instead, Jack and Ken checked the fireplace. Smoke from the half-burned-out fire was pouring into the room instead of rising up the flue.
“Must be a down draft,” Ken said, fighting the smoke. “The air’s heavy because of the rain.”
“Not that heavy, Ken.”
Jack recollected the strange thudding noise he had heard and the fleeting shadow he had seen. Someone, he was convinced, had been on the roof of the cabin.
“I’m going to see what’s wrong,” he announced. “Help me up there, will you?”
“You may crash through the roof,” Ken warned. “One good puff of wind and this whole place will fall down like a cardboard box.”
He and Craig Warner gave Jack a boost onto the sloping roof. In a moment they heard his shout of discovery.
“No wonder we were smoked out!”
“What’s wrong?” Ken demanded.
“A hunk of wood has been jammed down the chimney! The smoke couldn’t escape, so it went out into the cabin.”
Jack tugged and pulled, but the piece of wood had been wedged tightly into the chimney. Ken climbed up with a hatchet. Together they chopped the chunk to splinters, then dropped back down onto the ground.
“Who did it?” Walz demanded in a shaky voice.
“The ghost of Old Stony,” Jack replied in jest. “Maybe he’s upset to find us in his valley.”
At mention of the old prospector, Walz seemed to go to pieces.
“Don’t be saying things like that!” he fairly screamed.
“Sorry,” Jack apologized. “It was only a joke. I don’t know any more than you do about who wedged that wood into the chimney. But it was done on purpose.”
“I’m not going back in there tonight,” Walz whined with a shudder. “Why, it’s a wonder we weren’t burned in our beds!”
By this time, the sky had grown lighter, an indication that dawn was not far off. The clouds were clearing, and the rain had stopped.
“If Willie and War got through to the Forest Service station, we may sight their plane today,” Mr. Livingston said hopefully.
No one attempted to go back to sleep. Warner and Jack made a brief but futile search for their mysterious enemy.
“I suspect it’s the same fellow who stole our food and my gun,” the rancher said.
“You think it’s somebody who has been living here in the valley?”
“It looks that way, Jack. Who he is, or how he manages to keep alive, I don’t know. We’ll have to be eternally on guard.”
Mr. Livingston and Ken had fished the lake during their absence, and now near the cabin they proudly displayed four good-sized trout.
“Where’s Walz?” Ken suddenly asked.
The motel owner was not to be found near the cabin nor in it. Very shortly the Scouts learned the reason: during their absence, he had disappeared. With him had gone their few remaining supplies.
“Why, that thieving rascal!” Warner exclaimed. “We took pity on him and shared what little we had. This is our pay.”
Only a perfunctory search was made for Walz. It was certain he had taken refuge in the bush not far from the cabin, but to track him down would have been a difficult and useless task.
“By this time, he’ll have hidden what he can’t consume,” Warner said in disgust. “He probably figures on finding those caches and getting out of here fast.”
Breakfast was a disheartening meal. The fish, baked in leaves, was tasteless without salt.
“We’ll not starve,” Warner said. “But it’s sure we have to replenish our supply of staples or hit the trail for Elks Creek. The question is, can we be sure that Willie and War have gotten help for us?”
Mr. Livingston spoke with quiet confidence: “Unless they had some bad luck the plane will get here.”
“Good flying weather today,” Ken added cheerfully.
“It’s settled then that we stick it out,” Warner said.
They decided that one of them should remain close to the clearing throughout the day to make certain the plane would not be missed. Selecting a fairly level place where the packages of food might be parachuted down, Jack laid out a bright-colored cloth as a signal.
In the meantime Warner, Mr. Livingston, and Ken set off to try to find the gold caches. At noon they returned, tired, hungry, and discouraged.
“No luck,” Ken reported, “but we did find a grave on a hillside not far from the lake.”
“My father’s,” Craig Warner said. “There was a marker with his name.”
“An odd thing,” Mr. Livingston contributed. “Ferns and flowers have been planted beside the grave.”
“Recently too,” added Ken. “At least, the earth around them has been loosened recently.”
Warner gazed toward the distant mountains, glistening in the bright sunlight. “This trip has already been worth while for me,” he said. “The gold doesn’t matter.”
“But there is gold!” Jack insisted. “At least, when I was at the lake I saw particles of it that had washed down from the hills. And I found a sluice box someone had been using.”
“Our unknown enemy, probably,” Warner said. “He didn’t show himself while we were gone?”
“No one.”
“Any sign of a plane?”
“None.”
In the afternoon, Ken took his turn staying behind, while the others resumed search for the caches of ore. According to Warner’s recollection of the map, both had been near the entrance to a ravine some distance from the lake, but the morning search had proven unfruitful.
“I may have made a miscalculation,” the rancher admitted.
“Maybe we picked the wrong ravine,” said Jack.
They began the afternoon search nearer the lake and cabin. Immediately, landmarks seemed somewhat more familiar and similar to the chart markings they remembered.
“We must be on the right track!” Jack said jubilantly.
They were encouraged to find old holes drilled in the hillside. This they took to be evidence that Old Stony or other prospectors who followed him had tested the area as a possible mine site.
But the hiding place, if ever there had been one, could not be found.
“Maybe Walz has had better luck,” Jack said, sinking down on a rock. “Queer we haven’t had a glimpse of him all day.”
“He’s lying low,” Mr. Livingston said. “Either that, or he’s hit out for Elks Creek.”
Disheartened, the trio finally headed back toward the cabin. As they rounded a ridge, Jack suddenly stiffened.
“Listen!”
Faintly in the distance, they could hear the drone of an airplane engine.
“War and Willie are sending help!” Jack cried. “Food!”
With all haste, the three fought their way up the crumbling rocks. Reaching a high spot, they eagerly scanned the sky.
Far to the east, a tiny moving speck could be discerned.
“It’s coming this way!” Jack shouted. “The pilot can’t miss the lake!”
Although the plane was still far away, he took off his hat and began waving it in a wide arc. He might have spared himself the trouble.
The plane came on closer for a moment longer and then, for no apparent reason, it banked and turned back on its course.
Jack kept thinking that it surely would circle again. But it did not.
As he and his companions watched in stunned silence, it vanished between the mountain peaks.
Heartsick, Jack, Craig Warner, and Hap Livingston trudged back to the cabin. Ken, too, had seen the plane from the woods where he had been gathering a few edible berries. He reported that it had not come close enough to the clearing for him to signal.
“What made it turn back?” he grieved. “Surely the lake makes a sizable landmark.”
“It may not have been the Forest Service plane,” said Warner.
“Something’s wrong,” Mr. Livingston declared. “Warwick and Willie may have had trouble getting through. If anything happened to them—well, I’ll always blame myself for letting them go off alone.”
“They’ve made it by now,” Jack said.
However, he spoke with more confidence than he felt. War’s condition had not been the best, and it was quite possible he had fallen ill on the trail. Resolutely, he put the matter from his mind. There was enough to worry about as it was, he told himself.
“Any visitors while we were away?” he asked Ken as the group walked to the cabin.
“Only a bear. He didn’t stick around long when he found there was no food.”
“Walz?”
“Not a glimpse of him.”
“He’s hidden out in a canyon somewhere,” Jack guessed. “He may give us trouble yet—especially if we should find the gold before he does.”
“Not much chance of that,” Ken replied. “In fact, I’m beginning to think Stony dreamed up that gold. The valley’s real enough, but that cache may have been all fancy.”
Jack made no answer. Weary, hungry, and discouraged, he too wondered if the trip to Headless Hollow might not have been a mistake. However, he had no intention of saying so. Fetching water from the lake, he went into the cabin and flung himself onto the bed of boughs.
Despite his weariness, he did not lie there long. Something which was propped against the fireplace drew his gaze. He rolled off the bed and went over to pick it up. It was a long strip of bark, and on the inside surface a message had been printed in uneven charcoal letters.
“GIT OUT OF THIS HEAR VALLEY BEFOR IT IS TOO LATE.”
Jack carried it outside to show to the others.
“Walz never left this,” he said. “That fellow who tried to smoke us out last night must have printed it.”
“He’s an unfriendly coot,” Warner observed. “It’s a mystery how he manages to live here.”
Ken said he had seen no one near the cabin while the others had been searching for the caches. Nevertheless, he had been absent himself for half an hour. It was during this period, they decided, that the fellow had sneaked out of the woods to leave the warning message.
After another frugal meal of fish and berries, everyone except Warner turned in for the night. He insisted upon keeping watch until midnight. At that hour, Mr. Livingston relieved him. It was nearing dawn when Jack awoke to see the Scout leader dozing by the fire.
“It’s my turn now,” he volunteered.
Mr. Livingston reluctantly permitted him to take over the watch. Jack sat a while with only his dreary thoughts for company. In his mind’s eye, he tried to reconstruct the treasure map as first he had seen it in Rocking Horse.
Definitely, he recalled that the two caches of gold had been close to each other at the mouth of a ravine. But the years might have wrought changes in the terrain. Wind and rain and rock slides could have altered the area.
For that matter, with the valley inhabited, might not the gold long ago have been removed?
Jack’s thoughts rambled back to his last talk with Stony in the hospital. Then he had seriously doubted that the prospector had found gold in this remote valley. Now that he was here, he had gradually begun to believe that the tale had been true.
The grave and marker with John Warner’s name indicated that Stony had indeed lost his partner in Headless Hollow. Mystery still shrouded the death. Restlessly, Jack rose and walked to the window. The sky was beginning to lighten. Very soon the sun would be up.
He built up the fire. Noticing that the supply of wood was low, he took the axe and went for more. He chopped a dead jackpine, stacking the pieces near the cabin door.
As he went down to the lake for water, he thought he heard mocking laughter from amid the willows. But he could see no one, and when he halted to listen, there was no further sound. He continued to the water’s edge and stooped to fill the vessel. Some instinct warned him. He still had heard no sound but, without knowing why, he whirled suddenly.
A dark figure loomed behind him. He caught a blurred impression of an aged face as he ducked.
A heavy object struck him a glancing blow on the side of his head. Senses reeling, he staggered crazily backward into the water as wild laughter rang in his ears.
Dazed as he was, he realized his opponent had struck him with the butt of Warner’s stolen gun. And now the crazed fellow was pointing it at him, laughing idiotically!
Off balance from the stunning blow, Jack let himself collapse into the lake. Then, fearful his assailant would fire, or hurl a rock at him if he emerged, he dived deeper.
Holding his breath, he went down into the chilly depths until he struck sand, and then he swam underwater. When his lungs screamed for air, he cautiously rose to the surface. Raising his nose and mouth just above water, he gazed toward shore.
At first the wild creature who had assaulted him so viciously was nowhere to be seen. But as Jack scanned the shore, he saw the dark figure retreating as stealthily as he had come. He was a bent, twisted man who moved with cat-like tread over the rocks toward a distant ravine.
Scrambling out on shore, Jack ran to the cabin. He met Craig Warner, who only that moment had dressed.
“You fell in the lake!” Warner exclaimed, staring at him.
Jack related what had happened and added: “The fellow who attacked me is as crazy as this mountain! He headed for the far ravine.”
“I’m going after him,” Warner said.
Jack would not allow the rancher to trail the old man alone. Without taking time to change his wet clothes, he guided Warner in the direction his attacker had taken.
The sky was rapidly brightening. At the edge of the ravine they caught their first glimpse of the old man. He wore moccasins and moved with amazing swiftness over the rough terrain.
“Unless I’m mistaken, he’ll lead us to Old Stony’s gold,” Warner whispered. “Our best bet is to keep out of sight.”
Agile as a monkey, the old fellow scrambled over the rocks with the energy of a much younger man. He came at last, as the rancher predicted, to a pit opening that was covered by brush.
Not even glancing about, the man pulled the debris aside and dropped out of view.
“It’s a mine, all right,” Warner declared as he and Jack crouched behind the bushes, waiting.
“Stony’s caches of ore must be somewhere close,” Jack whispered.
Warner nodded. “Probably, unless this daffy old fellow has moved them. He has certainly been living here a long while, Jack.”
By this time the sun was up, and Jack’s wet clothing had begun to dry a little. But he remained cold, uncomfortable, and drowsy. He craved action.
“Shouldn’t we try to find out what’s doing down in that mine?” he urged.
“Patience, Jack.”
“He may stay down in that hole all day!”
“He’ll come out sooner or later. We’d be crazy to go after him, Jack. Remember, he has a gun.”
“I know,” Jack conceded with a sigh. “It’s hard to wait, though. What’s he doing down there, anyhow? Counting his gold?”
“Digging it, more than likely.”
Jack’s tired eyes sparkled. “You think we’ve stumbled onto Old Stony’s source of gold?”
“We’ve found something,” Warner grunted. “But don’t forget, Colorado is thick with abandoned mines—most of ’em worthless.”
As the sun rose higher, Jack became convinced the old fellow would never reappear. He was half asleep, when Warner unexpectedly nudged him. Then he came awake with a start.
The old man could be seen backing awkwardly out of the pit hole.
In the bright daylight, he looked like a grotesque creature with long, windblown white hair and a straggling, dirty-white beard.
But Jack was not inclined to chuckle. The old fellow had an intensity of purpose which was frightening. He was chattering to himself, but the only word the listening pair could distinguish was: “Gold.”
Then, as they watched, the old man turned his half-glazed eyes toward the bush where they crouched. In that instant Warner obtained his first direct look at the withered, weather-tanned face.
“Well, what d’you know!” he whispered. “It’s Joe Hansart!”
The gaunt man who had crawled from the mine pit did not see them crouching in the dense thicket. He stood facing them, however, a revolver dangling carelessly at his belt. He was a grotesque, powerfully built fellow amazingly agile, and he was wearing a ragged, red-wool shirt and an open, tattered leather jacket.
As Jack and the rancher watched, Joe Hansart wheeled and trotted off over the rocks in the general direction of the pass.
“We missed our chance to nab him,” Jack said, emerging.
“Yes, but he has my gun, and it’s probably loaded,” Warner replied. “If he sees us he may shoot. The poor old fellow seems completely off his rocker.”
“You know him?”
“Not very well, but he’s Joe Hansart.”
“Is he the prospector you mentioned at your ranch?”
“Yes. Years ago I saw him a few times.”
“Didn’t you tell us at the ranch that he had set out for this hollow and vanished?”
“Yes,” the rancher answered. “So far as I know, Joe hasn’t been seen in Elks Creek for years.”
“But how has he managed to live?”
Warner shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe he makes trips out, though not to Elks Creek. Probably he stashes food for the winter. In the summer, a man of his ingenuity could get along on very little.”
“But why would he stay here year after year?”
“Evidently he’s been seized with gold fever, Jack, and it has twisted his brain.”
“You think he’s found Old Stony’s caches?”
“I suspect so, Jack. Perhaps he has even stumbled onto a rich vein in that pit mine. Let’s find out.”
Making certain the old prospector had not doubled back on his trail, the two dropped down into the hole.
The mine was a shallow one, bolstered with crudely cut timber. Water dripped from above, making the floor slippery and slimy. Warner’s flashlight came to rest on a box of dynamite.
“Watch it!” he advised sharply, as Jack would have investigated. “That stuff’s old—and dangerous.”
A little farther on they came to a pile of mined ore. Warner picked up one of the chunks of rock, studying the dull-looking metal under the flashlight.
“This looks like rich stuff!” he exclaimed. “It’s hand sorted!”
“Then Stony was right!” Jack cried. “He did find a fortune, only to lose it.”
“Hard to tell until the stuff is assayed, but this ore looks rich to me. Almost pure gold, Jack.”
“And there’s a lot of it! Piles and piles! Old Joe Hansart must have been mining it here for years.”
Warner went on to a second and third pile of ore, but his enthusiasm began to die.
“What’s wrong?” Jack demanded, puzzled by the rancher’s change of attitude. “Isn’t it gold, after all?”
“It’s gold, all right.”
“But not quality stuff?”
“Well, it’s hard to tell much just by looking at it, Jack. That first pile of hand-sorted stuff was rich—no question about it. But this—” Warner dropped a chunk of ore contemptuously.
“It’s worthless?”
“I wouldn’t say that. I’m no expert. It’s easy to see, though, that’s it’s not the same rich ore as that first pile.”
“Even so, there’s a lot of it,” Jack said optimistically.
“Oh, that one pile might be worth thousands,” Craig Warner replied. “And it’s available to anybody who hauls it out.”
“Why do you suppose Joe Hansart hasn’t done it?” Jack speculated.
“Two reasons probably: one, he hasn’t wanted anyone to know of his discovery; two, ore is heavy.”
“You figure Hansart never filed a claim?”
“I doubt it, Jack. If he had, word would have swept this section of country like a prairie fire. He’s probably panned enough pure gold from the lake to keep him in supplies. Meanwhile, he has stayed on here alone, enlarging the mine.”
A short distance further into the pit, they came to a tunnel opening which had been half covered with debris. Pulling the brush aside, Warner ran the beam of his light over the rough wall.
“This seems to be where Hansart has done his most recent work,” he observed. “You can see the vein. But it’s thin—played out.”
“Then this is only another worthless mine?”
“I couldn’t pass judgment on such a brief inspection,” Warner returned. “Besides, as I say, I’m not an expert.”
“But it doesn’t look too promising to you?”
“Frankly, it doesn’t, Jack. I don’t want to build up your hopes, only to have them collapse.”
“Oh, I hadn’t figured on cashing in on this trip except in fun and experience,” Jack rejoined cheerfully.
“There’s gold here,” Warner said soberly. “These days, though, it takes capital—lots of it—to operate any mine profitably. Headless Hollow is hard to get at. So to make it worth while, the vein would have to be exceedingly rich.”
They went on to the end of the narrow tunnel.
“In my opinion the vein was better near the surface,” Craig Warner said, as he and Jack turned back. “It’s one of those freak things. Old Stony thought he had made a rich find. He must have found ore that would be worth maybe twenty to fifty thousand dollars in the present market. But the streak seemingly plays out.”
“Mightn’t it pick up again somewhere in the valley?” Jack suggested hopefully.
“Yes. But if in all these years Joe Hansart hasn’t improved on this site, I doubt there’s any bonanza here.”
“The lure of gold, though, has held him here.”
“True,” Warner agreed. “And there’s the tragedy of it. Poor Joe! I don’t know what’s to be done about him. He’s dangerous in his present state of mind, and it won’t be easy to help him.”
“He already regards me as Enemy No. 1,” Jack said with a rueful chuckle. “My head still aches from that crack he gave me on the head.”
“Joe’s probably afraid we’re here to steal his gold.”
“I suppose so. He must have been the one who stole our food at the ghost town. And he must be the one who put up that animal skeleton at the entrance to the pass.”
“Except for Joe, this valley must have been uninhabited for years,” Warner said thoughtfully. “Prospectors who drifted this way always got into trouble—minor accidents, food disappearing.”
“Hansart must have been behind it all!”
“He certainly wasn’t suspected, Jack. But what we’ve seen today convinces me—”
“No search ever was made for him?”
“None that I recall, Jack. You see, Joe was a queer one, even as a young man. The lone-wolf type. He had no relatives anyone ever heard about. When he’d vanish for a year or so at a time, no one thought anything of it. Then finally the story grew that he’d disappeared on a prospecting trip into this valley.”
“He must have lived in that wreck of a cabin we took over—the one built by your father and Old Stony.”
“Yes,” Warner agreed. “I’d guess that gold ore we found at the mine entrance—the good stuff—came from the original cache and poor old Joe stored it in here.”
“Probably he keeps pretty close watch of this mine,” Jack remarked, a note of uneasiness in his voice. “How long have we been down here, anyhow?”
“Too long.”
“Let’s get out,” Jack urged, starting over the rough, uneven tunnel floor.
Warner’s flashlight guided them to the main opening into the mine.
“It must still be pretty dark outside,” Jack remarked, mystified because no daylight filtered down. “A fellow can’t see an inch ahead of his face.”
He groped on up the rough steps in the rock. But where the exit to the mine should have been, his hand encountered first a mass of brush, and then solid rock.
“Something’s wrong!” he muttered. “This can’t be the way we came.”
“Sure, it is,” Warner insisted, pressing close behind him. “This mine is a simple affair. No offshoots. Here, let me have a look.”
His light beam swept the mine exit.
Both the rancher and Jack drew in their breath sharply.
The opening through which they had entered a few minutes before was now blocked. They were trapped in the mine!
Jack’s first thought was that a rock slide had dammed up the mine entrance. Sober reflection, however, told him that such was not the case.
Obviously, someone had quietly shoved a great boulder across the narrow opening.
“Joe Hansart!” he exclaimed. “He must have seen us come in here.”
“We’re trapped, all right,” Warner muttered.
He and Jack applied their shoulders and heaved with all their strength. They could move the rock a trifle, but not enough to shift it from its position.
“Other rocks have been piled on top,” Warner gasped.
Once more the pair worked and heaved in unison, but without the slightest success.
Exhausted, they sank back against the rock wall to consider their desperate plight. Soon they would be missed at the cabin. That was certain. But it was doubtful Ken or Mr. Livingston would pick up their trail to this remote ravine until many hours, perhaps days had passed.
Meanwhile, they were without food or water. And Joe Hansart might lie in wait for any rescuers and attack them as he had attacked Jack.
“Crazy coot!” Warner exclaimed. “He’s outwitted us. We became so intent on exploring the mine that we forgot everything else.”
“Listen!” Jack directed suddenly.
He was certain he had heard a scratching sound on the huge rock above their heads.
“Maybe it’s Joe Hansart piling on more stones!” he muttered.
Together, the trapped pair shouted. At once the scraping sound ceased.
“Someone’s out there,” Warner decided. “It must be Joe. Maybe if we can convince him we don’t want any of his gold, he’ll relent and let us out.”
They shouted, but only their own voices echoed weirdly back in the pit. Desperately, they shoved again at the rock barrier. This time they succeeded in dislodging enough of the loose debris to permit a little daylight to filter down.
As they nursed their bruised hands, they heard harsh laughter.
“Joe, listen to reason!” Warner bellowed at him. “We don’t want your stupid gold.”
“No?” asked a mocking voice.
Warner and Jack stiffened.
“That’s Walz!” the latter identified him. “Not Hansart!”
For a fleeting instant, the two prisoners took heart. They thought they would be able to reason with the motel owner.
“Listen!” Warner shouted to him. “There must have been a rock slide. Help us get out of here!”
“And why should I do that?” the motel owner asked in the same mocking tone. “You won’t make any trouble where you are now!”
“Have you lost your senses?” Warner stormed.
“Quite the contrary,” Walz rejoined, plainly enjoying his triumph. “You’ve both been a pain in my neck ever since I set eyes on you. Now you get what you deserve.”
“What’s the idea blocking the exit?” Warner demanded. “What’s your game?”
“My game? Only a little device to gain time. It was your bad luck that you stumbled onto the vein.”
“The vein—” Warner started to explode, then held his tongue.
“Oh, I saw you sneak into the mine after the old man went away,” Walz rattled on.
“You’ve been down here yourself?”
“I have,” the motel owner admitted. His voice carried plainly to the pair below, for he was close to the opening between the rocks. “I found the gold ore, and I have samples now in my pack.”
“What are you aiming to do with ’em?”
“I’ll have them assayed. But first I’m staking out a claim to this section of the valley.”
“Sure someone hasn’t beaten you to it?”
“This is unclaimed valley—the entire hollow. Ranier told me so. That dirty, low-down scamp deserted me. I’ll get even with him when I get back to Elks Creek.”
“Listen,” Warner said in exasperation, “you’ve had your little joke. Now let us out of here. We can’t raise that rock from below, but you can roll it aside.”
“Maybe I can, but I’m not going to do it,” Walz retorted coolly. “You trailed me to Headless Hollow, but you’re not going to beat me filing a claim.”
“Who wants to file one, you stupid ox?”
“You!” the motel owner accused. “I’ve risked everything to get this gold. Nothing is going to stop me now. Nothing!”
“You’re welcome to the gold—whatever you can find,” Warner said wearily. “Just let us out.”
“Never.”
At first, the trapped pair had not believed that the motel owner seriously meant to keep them confined below, but his intention could no longer be doubted.
“Walz, pay close attention,” Warner pleaded. “I came to this place largely to see the grave of my father. The gold—if there was any—didn’t mean too much to me.”
“That’s a lie!”
“It means everything to you, but you have the wrong slant. Unless I’m mistaken, this mine would never pay well enough to interest a company. Old Stony gathered some rich ore, it’s true. He died without knowing that the vein wasn’t extensive.”
“You’re wasting your breath,” Walz retorted. “Talk till you’re blue in the face. It won’t move me. I have my samples of gold, and I’m hitting the trail!”
“Walz—”
There was no answer. The two prisoners realized that he had carried out his threat and left. They were indeed trapped in the mine.
“Hap and Ken will start searching any minute now,” Jack said, trying to remain cheerful. “If they come this way, they may see that pile of rock.”
“And again they may not,” Warner grunted. “We may never be found until it’s too late. Walz is a blackguard, if I ever met one! Like as not, even after he’s filed his claim he won’t send anyone.”
“There’s always Joe Hansart. He’ll be coming back.”
“Yeah,” Warner agreed, “our best hope probably lies with him. But the old coot may stay away for days. Meanwhile, we can get pretty fed up in this hole.”
The two sat down, their backs to the rough wall. Jack’s clothing had only partially dried after his ducking in the lake, so he was damp and uncomfortable.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Warner said determinedly. “You’ll get pneumonia, if we don’t.”
“No exit except this one?”
“The tunnel ended against a blank wall. I checked that.”
“If Walz could push that stone into place alone, the two of us ought to be able to shove it away.”
“We’re pushing against gravity, Jack. He rolled it down the incline. Besides, once he got it into place, he piled on other rocks and debris. We’re caught like two animals in a cage.”
Suddenly Jack straightened as a thought occurred to him.
“That dynamite!” he suggested. “Any chance we could blast our way out of here?”
“Maybe we could!” the rancher exclaimed. “It would be risky business, though. Old dynamite, especially, is dangerous to handle.”
“A tiny charge would turn the trick.”
“Sure,” Warner grinned, “providing we aren’t both blown to bits before we set it off. But I’m willing to try. Anything’s better than just waiting in this hole.”
The rancher would not allow Jack to go near the stored boxes. He insisted, “You go and take refuge in the far end of the tunnel.”
Using the utmost care, Warner placed the dynamite sticks without accident. Breathing hard, he joined Jack after the fuse had been set. For a full minute, they waited tensely. Nothing happened.
“The stuff is dead,” Jack declared.
“Maybe not,” Warner said. “It was a long fuse. Wait.”
They waited. Suddenly the tunnel was rocked by a terrific explosion. As they hit the earth, covering their faces, small bits of rock showered down. When the dust had cleared, they groped their way back to the entrance. Climbing up through the debris, they saw daylight. Warner squeezed out through the tumbled rocks, and reached down to help Jack.
“We’re free and still in one piece,” the rancher chuckled.
Setting out from the ravine, they started for the cabin. However, they had covered less than a third of the distance when they saw Hap Livingston and Ken coming toward them at a run.
“What happened?” Ken demanded, as he glimpsed the dirt-streaked faces and disheveled clothing of the two. “We heard an explosion!”
Tersely, Jack and the rancher related their harrowing experience in the mine.
“Now Walz is streaking for Elks Creek!” Warner ended the account. “He’s on a fool’s chase, in my opinion. I could be wrong.”
“Shouldn’t we try to head him off?” Jack proposed eagerly. “He’s not had too big a start.”
“It won’t take long to sling our equipment together,” Ken added. “Maybe we can overtake him. We have a score to settle, regardless of the gold!”
“It may not be necessary,” Warner advised quietly.
His words were mystifying. Then the other three noticed that the rancher had turned his gaze toward the distant pass which guarded Headless Hollow. Far above them, on the high cliffs, they saw two struggling men.
“Walz and Joe Hansart!” Jack exclaimed. “They’re fighting.”
The watchers below were too far away to see the struggle plainly. It was apparent, though, what had happened. Evidently Walz had attempted to leave the valley with his sack of sample gold, and Joe Hansart had caught him. Now the two were locked in a death struggle. As the Explorers watched in horror, the two men fought close to the edge of the cliffs.
“They’ll kill each other, if we don’t stop them!” Mr. Livingston exclaimed.
At a run, he and the others started for the pass.
The trail, such as it was, wound in a gradual climb. Jack and Ken tried the steeper, direct route. Even so, they were less than a third of the way up to the cliff when they heard a hoarse, frightened shout.
Joe Hansart, despite his age, had overpowered his adversary. Inch by inch, he crowded him to the edge of the precipice. Walz rocked back and forth on the ledge, fighting for his life. Beneath him yawned the chasm.
The end of that desperate struggle was inevitable.
Walz’ boot went over the slanting rock. He tried wildly to regain a foothold, but could not. As he fell, he held fast to the old man, pulling him along.
Locked in each other’s arms, the two men fell to a ledge fifteen or twenty feet below. There they struck bushes which in part broke their fall. Then over and over they rolled, to the bottom of the long slope.
“What an end!” Ken gasped, shuddering.
Peering over the cliff, Jack saw Walz move one of his hands. It revived his hope that the motel owner at least might have survived the long drop.
“Quick!” he cried. “A rope!”
Ken went as fast as he could back to the cabin. Without waiting, Jack scrambled down the steep slope.
He lost his footing almost at once and rolled. He managed to break the fall with his hands, and brought himself to a stop, unhurt, not far from the two injured men.
Joe Hansart, he saw at a glance, was the more seriously injured. The old man lay in a crumpled heap, bleeding from a head wound. Walz was conscious, though in a state of semi-shock.
“Help me,” he whimpered. “Help me. My leg is broken.”
Ignoring Walz for the moment, Jack checked Joe Hansart’s bleeding. The wound was superficial. The old man, however, was pale, and his lips were blue. His pulse was weak and rapid. He drew breath irregularly and with difficulty.
“Take it easy,” Jack advised. “Help is on the way.”
He moved the old man so that his head lay downhill. He was relieved to see that this position restored Joe’s color a trifle and improved his pulse, but he saw that the prospector was quivering from shock and chill. Stripping off his jacket, he covered the old man.
Leaving him for the moment, he turned his attention to the whimpering motel owner.
“I’m dying,” Walz moaned. “The pain is horrible. Do something!”