CHAPTER XIV.LOST UNDERGROUND.
The Plesiosaurus made no attempt to come up out of the water.
Once more it gave its strange cry and Dick, looking around, saw its huge back come up into view, and, with its long neck arched like a swan, it sailed away over the lake and was soon lost to view in the darkness.
Dick and Clara had now stopped running and stood looking off over the lake watching the strange creature as it sailed away.
“I ought to be ashamed of myself for being so timid, Mr. Darrell,” said Clara. “But I have had such a dreadful time that my nerves are all shaken. What is that creature? I didn’t suppose anything like it existed on earth.”
“And I don’t believe there is such a thing existing anywhere else,” replied Dick. “I’ll tell you all about it in a few moments. My friend is coming. I’ve got such a lot to tell you. Do you know I almost wonder that you remember my name—you only saw me for a moment that night in Washington.”
“Indeed, I am not likely to forget your bravery then,” replied Clara, “nor what you tried to do for me on the mountain the other night.”
“Hello, Dick! Hello! Hello! Where are you?” Charley’s welcome voice was heard shouting, although as yet he had not appeared.
Dick had paused several times in his conversation to give Charley the call and he now did so again.
In a moment they caught sight of a shadow coming along the shore of the lake and soon Charley, with his clothes as badly saturated as Dick’s, came hurrying up.
It was a joyful meeting and the next ten minutes were devoted to explanations and telling their respective stories.
Charley’s experience had been just the same as Dick’s, except that he was swept into the lake and had a hard job getting ashore, as he had become greatly exhausted.
“Lucky old P. D. didn’t rise near me or I should have been a goner,” he said. “Strange you didn’t hear me holler, Dick. I kept it up all the time.”
“So did I,” replied Dick, “but we must have been a long way apart at the beginning. Now, Charley, what is to be done? Here we three are in this hole and the thing is to get out as quick as ever we can, but for the life of me I don’t see how we are going to do it without running into Mudd and his gang.”
Clara had explained her situation fully by this time. It appeared that she had been on her way to the mine her father owned in the neighborhood of the Black Hills, the man Bill Struthers having been sent down to the railroad to meet her and guide her through the Bad Lands to the mine.
Mudd, she declared, was a man whom her father had used in his business, but had to discharge on account of dishonesty. “He’s a thorough scoundrel,” Clara went on to say; “he swore to be avenged on father and this is the way he has taken to do it. He brought me here and sent Bill in to tell father that the horse ran away with me and was lost. They expect father will offer a big reward to the man who finds me and I know they mean to trump up a story about my being captured by Indians and held for ransom. When they have got all the money they can out of father I suppose they mean to let me go.”
They kept on talking thus until Dick called a halt by making the remark quoted above.
“I’m blest if I see how we are going to get out,” said Charley. “We can’t go back up through the boiling pot, that’s certain. Perhaps Miss Eglinton will tell us how she was brought down into the cave.”
“Oh, I thought I told you about that!” exclaimed Clara.
“You certainly didn’t,” answered Dick “I’ve been waiting for a chance to ask you.”
“It’s easily explained, but, see here, boys, as we have been thrown together in this strange way we want to be as good friends as possible. I’m Clara to all my friends and that’s what you must call me.”
“I agree to that, providing you return the compliment,” replied Dick. “Now, don’t you worry. We are going to get out of this trouble and you are going back to camp with us. Our guide, Doctor Dan, knows every inch of the Bad Lands and we will start for your father’s mine at once and won’t leave you until you are safe in his hands.”
Clara was very grateful and she went on to tell how, after her capture, Mudd had blindfolded her for a few moments, halting for that purpose in a rocky glen, as she called it.
In this condition she had been led down some steps and when the handkerchief was removed from her eyes she found herself underground, being hurried along a narrow passage, which finally led them into the cave, where later the man Tony came, bringing the horses, which seemed to have come down by another way.
Later all three of the men rode off and were gone some time, but Mudd and Tony soon came riding back again. Since then they had been coming and going, Clara herself being kept a close prisoner until this morning, when she managed to slip the cords off her hands, and, as none of the three were in the camp at the time, she made her escape and had wandered about the cavern until she met Dick.
“What we have got to do, then,” said Dick, “is to get back to that camp and seewhat we can find out about these different ways in and out of the cave. I wouldn’t wonder a bit, Charley, if Doctor Dan was right after all and that horse did lead us to the very spot where Clara was blindfolded. It was just such a place as she describes.”
“Must we go back there,” said Clara. “I’d rather do almost anything else. You can’t imagine how I dread being captured by those men again and you know what Mudd has been to you, Dick.”
“I don’t, but I wish I did,” replied Dick. “I can’t make the man out at all. In one breath he threatens to kill me and in the next he is talking about making me a millionaire. I believe he’s crazy, if you want to know really what I think.”
It seemed entirely necessary to go back to the camp, however, so Clara undertook to guide them to the place.
From the first Dick felt his doubts about her being able to do it, for she turned away from the lake after they had advanced along the shore for a short distance and soon they were in a part of the cavern where it was so dark that they could scarcely see a foot ahead of them.
For an hour or more they wandered about.
For a long time Clara had been very silent, only speaking when one of the boys directly addressed her.
At length she stopped short, exclaiming:
“It is no use, boys. I can’t find the place. We are lost here underground!”