Off at Last!

On touching terra firma, and finding plenty of space around, they scrambled from off the pile of loose stones and stalks cast down by the Indians, and commenced groping their way about. Again touching the firm surrounding of rock, they groped searchingly along it.

They were not long engaged in their game of blind-man’s buff, when the necessity of trusting to the touch came abruptly to an end—as if the handkerchief had been suddenly jerked from their eyes. The change was caused by a light streaming in through a side gallery into which they had strayed. It was at first dim and distant, but soon shone upon them with the brilliance of a flambeau.

Following the passage through which it guided them, they reached an aperture of irregular roundish shape, about the size, of the cloister window of a convent. They saw at once that it was big enough to allow the passage of their bodies. They saw, too, that it was admitting the sunbeams—admonishing them that it was still far from night.

They had brought all their traps down along with them—their knives and pistols, with Hamersley’s gun still carefully kept. But they hesitated about going out. There could be no difficulty in their doing so, for there was a ledge less than three feet under the aperture, upon which they could find footing. It was not that which caused them to hesitate, but the fact of again falling into the hands of their implacable enemies.

That these were still upon the plain they had evidence. They could hear their yells and whooping, mingled with peals of wild demon-like laughter. It was at the time when the firewater was in the ascendant, and the savages were playing their merry game with the pieces of despoiled cotton goods.

There was danger in going out, but there might be more in staying in. The savages might return upon their search, and discover this other entrance to the vault. In that case they would take still greater pains to close it and besiege the two fugitives to the point of starvation.

Both were eager to escape from a place they had lately looked upon as a living tomb.

Still, they dared not venture out of it. They could not retreat by the plain so long as the Indians were upon it. At night, perhaps, in the darkness, they might. Hamersley suggested this.

“No,” said Walt, “nor at night eyther. It’s moontime, you know; an’ them sharp-eyed Injuns niver all goes to sleep thegither. On that sand they’d see us in the moonlight ’most as plain as in the day. Ef we wait at all, we’ll hev to stay till they go clar off.”

Wilder, while speaking, stood close to the aperture, looking cautiously out. At that moment, craning his neck to a greater stretch, so as to command a better view of what lay below, his eye caught sight of an object that elicited an exclamation of surprise.

“Darn it,” he said, “thar’s my old clout lyin’ down thar on the rocks.”

It was the red kerchief he had plucked from his head to put the pursuers on the wrong track.

“It’s jest where I flinged it,” he continued; “I kin recognise the place. That gully, then, must be the one we didn’t go up.”

Walt spoke the truth.............