The teeth of Jerry Smith came together with a snap.
“Then the thing for us to do is to get set and
wait for them to make an attack?”
“No use waiting. When they attack it’ll
be in a way that’ll give us no chance.”
“Then you figure the same as me—we’re
lost?”
“Unless we can get out before they make the
attack. In other words, Jerry, there may be something
behind the dirt wall at the end of the tunnel.”
“Nonsense, Ronicky.”
“There’s got to be,” said Ronicky
very soberly, “because, if there ain’t,
you and me are dead ones, Jerry. Come along and
help me look, anyway.”
Jerry rose obediently and flashed on his precious
pocket torch, and they went down to pass the turn
and come again to the ragged wall of earth which terminated
the passage. Jerry held the torch and passed it
close to the dirt. All was solid. There
was no sign of anything wrong. The very pick
marks were clearly defined.
“Hold on,” whispered Ronicky Doone.
“Hold on, Jerry. I seen something.”
He snatched the electric torch, and together they peered
at the patch from which the dried earth had fallen.
“Queer for hardpan to break up like that,”
muttered Ronicky, cutting into the surface beneath
the patch, with the point of his hunting knife.
Instantly there was the sharp gritting of steel against
steel.
The shout of Ronicky was an indrawn breath. The
shout of Jerry Smith was a moan of relief.
Ronicky continued his observations. The thing
was very clear. They had dug the tunnel to this
point and excavated a place which they had guarded
with a steel door, but, in order to conceal the hiding
place, or whatever it might be, they cunningly worked
the false wall of dirt against the face of it, using
clay and a thin coating of plaster as a base.
“It’s a place they don’t use very
often, maybe,” said Ronicky, “and that’s
why they can afford to put up this fake wall of plaster
and mud after every time they want to come down here.
Pretty clever to leave that little pile of dirt on
the floor, just like it had been worked off by the
picks, eh? But we’ve found ’em, Jerry,
and now all we got to do is to get to the door and
into whatever lies beyond.”
“We’d better hurry, then,” cried
Jerry.
“How come?”
“Take a breath.”
Ronicky obeyed; the air was beginning to fill with
the pungent and unmistakable odor of burning wood!
The Miracle
No great intelligence was needed to understand the
meaning of it. Fernand, having trapped his game,
was now about to kill it. He could suffocate
the two with smoke, blown into the tunnel, and make
them rush blindly out. The moment they appeared,
dazed and uncertain, the revolvers of half a dozen
gunmen would be emptied into them.
“It’s like taking a trap full of rats,”
said Ronicky bitterly, “and shaking them into
a pail of water. Let’s go back and see what
we can.”
