“About as bad as it could be.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know yet. But we’ll find a way out somehow.”
Mountain Jim spoke with his accustomed confidence; but it was easy to tell by his puckered brow and anxious eyes that he was by no means quite so certain of finding a way out of their unexpected trouble as he would have it appear.
An examination of the rock showed that it was a huge and heavy boulder that by ill luck happened almost exactly to fit the opening of the cave. Only the crack at the top, which was narrow and irregular admitted light and air.
“Well, we’re in a snug enough place now,” declared[201] Mountain Jim, with a rueful grin, as he completed his examination, “the only objection is that we’re too blamed snug. I could do with a thinner door, for my part.”
Ralph agreed with him. The boy’s spirits were considerably dashed by this misfortune which, indeed, appeared to portend serious, even fatal results if some way could not be found out of their quandary.
They tried shoving the great rock, but their efforts were of no more avail than if they had been a couple of puny babes.
“That settles that,” grunted Mountain Jim, wiping the sweat off his face as they concluded their efforts. “‘No admittance,’ that’s the sign we ought to have hung outside.”
“‘No exit,’ would be more like it,” retorted Ralph, “I don’t see why anyone would want to get in here.”
He spoke sharply and Mountain Jim looked at him with a quizzical look.
[202]
“Now don’t blow up, youngster,” he said, “things might be a lot worse. For instance, you might be under that rock at this blessed minute.”
“By Jove! That’s so, and I owe it to you that I’m not,” spoke Ralph quickly, flushing shame-facedly over his exhibition of temper.
“That part of it is all right,” responded Mountain Jim easily, “but the point is that I’ve been in a heap tighter places than this and got out with a whole skin. Let’s form ourselves into a Committee of Ways and Means—of getting out of here.”
“All right. You start off. Any suggestions?”
“Yep. I’ve got one right hot off the griddle.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, the storm seems to have died down a bit now, and you can go outside and take a look and then report back on what you find.”
“But how in the world am I going to get out?”
“See that crack at the top there?”
“Yes; but——”
[203]
“Hold on. You never know what a narrow place you can squeeze through till you try. It’s my opinion that you can slip through that crack as easy as a bit of thread through the eye of a darning needle.”
Ralph eyed the crack between the top of the stone and the roof of the cave dubiously.
“I’ll try it,” he said, “but first I’ll take off my coat. That’ll make me thinner.”
He shed his stout hunting jacket and took the axe out of his belt. Then, aided by Mountain Jim, he clambered up and looked outside. The storm was rolling away to the southeast, and before long, as he could see, the sun would be shining once more. If only they could get out they could resume their journey without delay.
As Jim had foretold, it was not a hard matter for the lithe, slim boy to wriggle through the crack, narrow as it had appeared to be from below. Ralph stuck his head through and then[204] drew the rest of his body up. In a minute he was on the outside of the cave and free.
“Oh, Jim,” he called back, “can’t you make it, too?”
“Not me. My two hundred pounds would never get through that mouse hole,” responded Jim with perfect good humor. “I guess I’ll have to stay here till I get thin enough to follow you.”
Ralph slid down the rough face of the rock and then fell to examining its base eagerly. It rested on a small terrace just in front of the cave, but it didn’t take him long to see that no ordinary means would dislodge it.
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CHAPTER XXII. AN ENCOUNTER WITH “BLOODS.”
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