CHAPTER XVII
In Darkness
For one despairing instant the two peered at the fallen rock through thethick haze of dust, then Scotty snapped, "Back into clean air."
They retreated the way they had come. Rick clicked off his flashlightinstinctively. They might need it.
When clean air was reached again they stopped and Scotty swept hisflashlight beam over the rocky floor. "Pick a seat and get comfortable.We'll be here for a while."
"We won't get out of here by sitting down," Rick replied.
"No, and we won't do much until the dust settles, either. Relax and getcooled off. When the dust has settled a little, we can go back and seejust how bad the block is."
Rick remembered the tons of rock above the timbers. The block had to bebad, he thought. There was plenty of rock there. Then, as he thoughtabout it, he wasn't so sure. A pretty large area had shown cracks, butperhaps only a layer had fallen. They might be able to dig out. Nothingto do about it but wait and see.
Scotty switched off his light and the blackness closed in. Rick shifteduncomfortably. Once before he had been lost in complete blackness likethis, in the Caves of Fear. But that had been different; he hadn't beenexactly trapped in the same way then, and the caves had covered milesunder a Tibetan mountain. At least he knew exactly where he was thistime.
He said, "We should have brought a picnic lunch."
Scotty chuckled, but didn't reply.
Rick said, "Suppose we can't get out?"
"We will. Dr. Miller will be hunting for us sooner or later. He couldn'tmiss the mine, especially with the boards off the entrance."
"Then all we need is patience and a tight belt."
"That's it."
The boys fell silent. Rick was cheered by Scotty's estimate of thesituation. He closed his eyes, and for perhaps the hundredth timestarted mulling over the chain of events, searching for a clue to thetwo things they needed to know: how and why the ghost was produced.
But as he thought about it he wondered if perhaps they didn't know why.The ghost was a means of keeping people out of the area. It hadsucceeded to a considerable degree. There were no more night familypicnics and swimming parties. There were only occasional long-scheduledevents.
He explored the idea. The mine area was private property. To keep peopleout one would need only to post "No Trespassing" signs. But in allprobability that wouldn't be suitable, because it would raise too manyquestions, and Dr. Miller would have to be let in on the secret of theghosts that walked the fields.
But why keep people out of the area? To be sure, privacy for the conductof secret operations was an obvious reason, only what were the secretoperations, and why did they have to be kept secret?
He gave up finally. There simply weren't enough data on which to hang aconclusion.
"Think the dust has settled?" he asked.
"Could be. Suppose we go take a look. I'll use my light. Save yours."
They followed the yellow beam of Scotty's flashlight through the darktunnel to the rockfall. There was still plenty of dust in the air, butit was bearable.
Scotty flashed his light on the timbers, then on the rockslide. One pairof uprights arose from the sloping pile of rock to a sound crosspiece.
Both boys knew what that meant. Rick put it into words. "If that's theset of timbers nearest to the ones that were bad, it means at least tenfeet of rock on this side, and probably the same or even more on theother. A total of twenty feet of rock."
Scotty grunted. "One thing is for sure. We won't dig our own way out fora few days. I'm not even sure we can. We might collapse from lack ofwater if we try working real hard."
"But we can't wait for help from the outside," Rick pointed out. "We canat least work while we still have our health."
"Can you work in the darkness?"
"I suppose we'll have to. The lights won't last long."
"Then let's get to it."
They retreated to an alcove and put their shirts in a safe place, thenwent to work in their T shirts. Lugging rocks would work up a sweat, andit was chilly underground. The shirts were for use during rest periods.
"Let's see how it goes," Scotty invited, and turned off his light.
Rick groped for a rock and found a good-sized one. He carried it backand promptly bumped into a wall and dropped it. Keeping a straight linewas going to be a problem. He groped for the rock and found it again,but this time he tucked it under one arm, using the opposite hand toguide him along the wall.
"I'm on the right-hand wall," he told Scotty. "I'll return along theleft-hand wall."
"Good system," Scotty approved.
It was, too. They passed each other in the dark and Rick was pleased,until he tripped on a rock and stumbled into the pile.
"We're going to have to count paces," he said ruefully as he nursed abruised knee. "Say twenty paces up and twenty paces back."
"Better make it twice that," Scotty replied. "We can't pile all therocks in one place. We'll have to spread them out."
"Forty it is," Rick agreed, and found another rock.
The work went on, gradually assuming the proportions of a dream--or anightmare. Pick up a rock, tote it forty paces, drop it. Thenthirty-five paces as the passageway got cluttered. Now and then they hadto join forces to lug a particularly big piece.
Rick's watch showed him that two hours had gone by. "Let's take abreak," he suggested.
"Okay."
Scotty turned on his light. They found their shirts, then went back tosurvey what they had accomplished.
One glance told them it wasn't much. They had cleaned out the passage upto the main slide, and that was all.
They looked at each other in the flashlight's glow.
"Got any earth-moving equipment in your pocket?" Rick asked wryly.
"Not a dragline or a clamshell," Scotty said. "We certainly didn't makemuch of a dent, did we?"
"At this rate we'll be here until Christmas," Rick said.
"Not that we'll need a Christmas tree."
"We could use the lights," Rick commented. "Let's keep plugging. I'm notso sure I need a rest after all."
"Might as well."
"Just sitting on the rocks will sap our strength, anyway," Rick pointedout. "We might as well work while we're still fresh. We can takefive-minute breaks when we begin to tire."
"I'm with you. Tote those rocks."
"Let's use one light, too. No point in just clearing the tunnel. We wantto break through in as short a time as possible. If we use the light wecan pull rocks from nearer the top of the slide."
"Sensible as usual. I'll prop my light so it shines on the slide."
Scotty did so, then both boys shed their shirts once more.
The rock hauling went faster even with the rays of the singleflashlight. They took turns climbing the slide and throwing rocks down.The boy taking a turn at the bottom moved them out of the way.
"Watch it!" Rick yelled suddenly, and jumped away from a slide of rock.Scotty, who was back in the tunnel disposing of a big rock, askedanxiously, "Are you hurt?"
"No. Hand me that light, will you?"
Scotty carried the light to where Rick waited. Rick took it and shone itupward to where the slide had come from. He whistled. There was solidceiling, but it was a yard higher than the rest of the tunnel ceiling.
He calculated quickly. "If this is typical, we have rock three feetthick, ten feet wide, and twenty feet long piled up in front of us. Thatmakes six hundred cubic feet of rock."
"But it can't be typical," Scotty disagreed. "If three feet had fallenuniformly, it wouldn't have filled the tunnel. It must be much thickerright over the broken timbers."
"Not a very cheerful prospect, is it?" Rick had a vision of yards ofrock ahead.
"I've seen happier prospects. But what can we do? Keep plugging is all,and hope it doesn't take long for Dr. Miller to locate us."
Rick looked at his watch. "No chance of that yet. It isn't evensuppertime. It may be morning before Dr. Mi
ller gets really worried."
Scotty chuckled grimly. "Our own reputation for being able to take careof ourselves is not helping us, either."
"I'll never go into a place without two entrances again," Rick promised.
There was a moment's shocked silence while the boys stared at eachother. They spoke simultaneously.
"How do you know this has only one entrance?"
"How do we know this hasn't two entrances?"
They had never reached the end of the mine. For all they knew, it mightonly be necessary to walk out!
"We'll go see," Rick stated. "Right now."
"Didn't we ever ask about another entrance?" Scotty demanded.
"No, now that I think of it, and no one ever said anything about it."
"Maybe they never said anything because there isn't anything to say."
"No more assumptions," Rick said. "We can find out for ourselves. Getyour shirt on and let's go."
They quickly dressed and hiked down the long tunnel to the point theyhad reached when the cave-in occurred. Rick paid more attention to theformation than before, and found it was easy to trace the ore vein.Pockets in the walls showed where offshoots of the main ore vein hadbeen located and dug out, but mostly the mine bored through the hill inone continuous tunnel.
"Funny they didn't take more ore out of the top," Scotty commented."Looks like fairly decent stuff overhead and to the left."
"Not good enough, I guess. Refining was pretty primitive in those days.Techniques are better now, but there probably isn't enough good ore hereto make new operations worth the expense of getting it out."
"Look ahead," Scotty said.
Rick had been examining the wall of the tunnel. He turned and looked towhere Scotty pointed, and his heart sank. It was another rockslide.
"Funny," Scotty commented. "The tunnel goes uphill to the slide."
Rick saw that his pal was right. But the change in elevation of thetunnel didn't seem important compared to the prospect that now facedthem. They simply had to go back and resume their rock hauling. Therewas no way of knowing whether the tunnel continued beyond the slide, orwhether the slide itself was the reason the Civil War miners had gone nofarther.
"I need a rest," Rick said, discouraged. "Let's sit down and take abreather before we start back."
"Okay. Douse the light?"
"Might as well. Your battery's getting low."
Scotty switched the light off and they sat down on the hard rock floor.Rick closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Plenty of hard work ahead. Hemight as well rest while he could.
Scotty spoke suddenly. "Plenty of good fresh air down here. Isn't that alittle odd?"
Rick stirred. "Is it? I hadn't thought much about it. But I suppose theair ought to be stale and smelly."
"Wet your finger."
"Huh? Oh, okay." It was the ancient trick of using the cooling caused byevaporation of moisture from a damp finger to show the movement of aircurrents. Rick let out an exclamation. The air in the tunnel was inmotion!
Scotty said with suppressed excitement, "Close your eyes. I'm going tolight a match."
Rick did so, and saw the light even through closed eyelids because hispupils were fully dilated. He opened his eyes cautiously, squintingagainst the glare of the match. As the pupils contracted he saw that thepaper match burned brightly, and that the flame flickered!
Scotty jumped to his feet, switching on the flashlight. "The breeze iscoming from the slide!"
With one accord they rushed to the slide and began pulling rocks away.Clearly, the tunnel sloped upward at this point. The question was, didit emerge in a real opening, or only in a hole driven through forventilation?
There was only one way to find out: move rock!
They sought for key rocks, those that would allow other rocks to tumbledown and out of the way.
Rick thought it was at least to their credit that they learned fromexperience. Then, as he jumped frantically to escape a sliding boulder,he had to grin at his own thought. They had learned, but not enough.
There was no doubt about it, a current of air came through the slide.They could feel it, cool and fresh, and redoubled their efforts.
Finally they had to slow down from sheer exhaustion.
"Take a break," Rick said huskily. "We'd be foolish to wear ourselvesout."
"You're right." Scotty slumped down where he was and wiped his face."That air current is getting stronger. We're making progress."
"Wish I knew toward what," Rick said.
"Air, anyway. And where there's a source of air is also daylight."
"I'd feel better if I could see some."
They rested in silence for five minutes by Rick's watch, then resumed,working as close to the top of the pile as they could get.
Scotty suddenly let out a yell, and Rick dodged to escape another rock,then leaped down as the whole pile crumbled. The rocks didn't fall far.
"Look," Scotty said breathlessly.
Rick turned on his own light to supplement the dim beam of Scotty's.Blackness yawned at the top of the slide!
Scotty was first through the hole, but Rick was right behind him. Theyemerged in a continuation of the tunnel, but on a higher level. Theirlights showed that the tunnel continued.
They followed it for perhaps fifty feet, and found themselves in a crosstunnel in which their tunnel ended.
Scotty looked at Rick in the beam of the flashlight.
"We're somewhere," he said. "But where?"
Rick grinned. There was a definite breeze blowing, and he knew theoutside and safety were not far away. "We're in the mine, under the sameold hill. Soon as we find the source of that breeze, I'll identify ourposition within two feet."
Scotty returned the grin. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"