CHAPTER XXI.
DYNAMITING TO FREEDOM.
Ben Stubb’s welcome solution of the problem of how to escape from thevalley, came as a great relief to the boys. As he had related thenarrative of his years of solitude up there, their hearts had sunk asthe realization, that they too might be doomed to the same fate, hadinvaded them. With the discovery that the prospector had dynamite andthe needful apparatus for setting off a blast without injury to the manwho fired it, however, their future had assumed a bright tinge, and whenthey went to bed that night in the rough cave that had been theoutcast’s home for such a long time, their dreams of the morrow werepleasant and hopeful.
Both the Chester boys had been deeply worried at the idea of the anxietytheir unexplained absence must be causing their father, and Frankbitterly blamed himself for having decided to go forward with theexploration of the tunnel before he had notified his father of theirdiscovery.
They were up betimes and set about the ticklish business of transportingthe keg of dynamite to the Serpent Chasm, where it was to be put to sucheffective use. It was decided that for the purpose for which theyrequired it only a small quantity would be necessary—in fact none ofthem wanted to run the risk of widening the chasm by placing too heavy acharge. Ben, who was experienced in the use of explosives, figured—theforce of dynamite being downward—that if the blast was fired at a depthof roughly two hundred feet down the chasm, that there would be nodanger of damaging the upper edges of the abyss so as to render themimpossible or to dislodge the chain on which they depended to make theirway to freedom.
Before the final preparations to evacuate the valley were set about,however, Ben took steps to hide the bar gold away carefully, with theaid of the boys, who, the warm-hearted sailor insisted, were to receivea share of it as soon as they could make up an expedition to the valley,and return to carry the precious metal out to civilization.
The castaway, too, had another important mission to perform. Beneaththat little grove of palms, at the wooded end of the valley alreadymentioned, there were two rough graves over which Ben had erected twoheadstones bearing simply his dead comrades’ names and the date of theirdeaths, carved by his knife. Alone the man who had shared theirloneliness went to the spot where the dead prospectors slept their lastsleep, and knelt bareheaded over the rough mounds. When he turned to thecave he was more serious than the boys had ever seen him during theirbrief friendship and he did not speak till everything was declared readyand it was time to lower the keg of high explosive into the shaft.
With the rawhide lariat with which he had rescued them, the keg wascarefully belayed into the hole and then one by one the adventurers sliddown it. It was with moist eyes the boys looked about them, as they oncemore trod what, but for Ben Stubbs’ timely intervention, would have beentheir tomb. One by one they wrung his hand warmly.
“That’s all right, shipmates,” Ben kept repeating, much embarrassed,“’twarn’t nothing at all—nothing at all—I’d have liked—” he added, witha touch of wistfulness in his voice—“for my poor dead mates to have beenhere, too, this day.”
As they started down the passage under such different auspices to thoseunder which they had made their way up it, Frank suddenly stopped andwith his knife cut off about six inches of the trailing rawhide rope. Hesliced this length up again into four pieces, kept one himself andhanded one to each of his three companions. Long afterward they were toremember those souvenirs and treasure them as among their choicestpossessions.
Frank had contrived a sort of sling, out of blankets, in which the heavykeg of powder was slung. Through the loop that this formed a long branchwith a hooked end was thrust. This was to grapple the chain with, afterthe explosion from which they hoped so much had taken place. It was ashort time later that they reached a spot about half-a-mile from theWhite Serpents’ Chasm, and here the keg was left after Ben had selecteda couple of long brownish sticks from it. These he tipped with fulminateof mercury caps, which were later in their turn to be attached to thefive hundred feet of sparking wires of the battery.
At this moment Frank recollected something that sent a thrill ofdisappointment through him.
“How old is your battery?” he asked anxiously of Ben.
“All of five years,” responded the prospector, “why?”
“Because I’m afraid it’s too old to be any good,” was the reply thatsent a shock of bitter disappointment through them all.
Anxiously they watched while Frank made a test. His fear was only tootrue. No encouraging blue spark responded, when the detonating key waspressed down. In the first feeling of dumb despair nobody found words.Billy was the first to speak:
“Hold on there,” he cried, “you fellows have got electric light torchesin your pockets?”
“By Jove,” cried Frank happily, “what a dumb idiot I am—thank you,Billy. I never thought of that.”
To the boys’ delight the batteries from their torches, which luckilythey had had made of extra power and efficiency, answered perfectly.When they were connected up to the wires a good “fat” spark was shown.
“That’s a massive brain of yours, Billy,” complimented Frank.
“Oh, pshaw, Frank; you’d have thought of it later,” protested thereporter, delighted nevertheless at having gained the young leader’sapprobation.
“Now then,” said Ben, when all was declared ready, “this thing is oneman’s job. Old man dynamite don’t like a crowd around when hecelebrates. You boys stay back here.”
In view, however, of the danger of an attack by the aroused serpents heconsented finally to allow Frank to accompany him down the tunnel to thechasm. The two companions,—the seasoned, toughened man and the braveboy,—set forth on their dangerous mission in silence. It was no time fortalking. All their plans were agreed upon. Ben was to lower the sticksof dynamite, cautiously over the brink of the serpent-filled abyss andFrank, with his rifle ready for emergencies, was to stand behind himready to drop any of their scaly enemies that might protest against theinvasion of their long undisputed kingdom.
A creepy feeling came over Frank as their candles showed them that theywere hard upon the chasm. The hour of the experiment upon which so muchhung was at hand. Ben without the quiver of an eyelid, held up a hand toenjoin absolute silence and crept on his belly to the edge of the pit.So far everything had gone well. There was not a sign, but the peculiarodor of musk that filled the air, that they were on any more dangeroustask than the placing of an ordinary placer mine blast. Frank, as hewatched Ben proceed to work, realized the purpose of a long bit of heavyboard the prospector had brought with him.
Ben stuck one end of the board, which was about six feet long, out abouttwo feet beyond the edge of the pit brink, having previously rigged thewires into a notch he had cut in its outer end. Frank saw at once thatthis was to obviate any danger of the giant powder striking the edge ofthe chasm as it was lowered and causing a premature explosion, whichwould certainly have cost them their lives.
All went well till Ben had lowered possibly sixty feet of wire and thenthere came a loud angry hiss, which soon grew into a sound of furiousreptilian rage that reverberated in the narrow tunnel, like wavesbreaking on a beach. As Frank heard, with a chill of horror, thisindisputable evidence that at that very moment the dynamite was brushingthe soft scaly backs of a nest of huge white serpents, his blood rancold.
Suddenly, Ben straightened himself up with a shout.
“All set!” he roared, and, leaping to his feet, started running like ajack rabbit back down the tunnel toward the battery-box. As if his cryhad been a signal, an enormous white head, with the same sightless eyesthat had distinguished the serpent Billy escaped from, arose from theedge of the pit with an angry hiss. In its snow-white head, its redtongue darted in and out like a flash of livid flame.
“Run Frank! Run for your life!” shouted Ben, as the loathsome monsterhurled itself out of the pit and started after him. Hardly knowing whathe did, F
rank fired point-blank at the creature in a perfect spasm ofdisgust and fear. He saw it writhe in great convulsions and as if in anightmare, witnessed the awful spectacle of two of its enraged brethrenwriggle toward him at lightning speed over the edge of the pit. Heturned to run but stumbled. As he fell he felt himself picked up by BenStubbs and fairly dragged over the ground up the tunnel to where thebattery stood. He saw Ben bend over the box and shout back into thetunnel to where the others were: “Lie flat everybody!”
Mechanically, Frank lay still and mechanically he heard the quick snapas Ben closed the circuit.
The next moment there was a roar that seemed to be the tearing out ofthe bowels of the earth. The tunnel became filled with choking fumes andFrank knew no more till he found himself crawling back with bleeding andcut hands and face to where the others lay, also stunned from theterrific concussion of the explosion in the small space in which itoccurred.
Dazed and staggering the boys still managed to regain their wits in afew minutes, and made their way down the tunnel to where Ben Stubbs hadset his battery-box. To their inexpressible relief they found the hardyoutcast sitting up with a cheerful grin on his countenance, dabbing awayat a wound on his forehead.
“Kind ’er like settin’ in a gun-barrel, when someone pulls the trigger,eh, boys?” he remarked cheerfully, “but I guess we set off our littleFourth of July celebration just in time.”
It was even as Ben said. When they had sufficiently recovered from theirdaze to proceed, they discovered the bodies of the three serpents—theone Frank had shot and the two others—torn almost to rags by the forceof the concussion.
“There ain’t much sarpint life left in that hole now, I’m thinking,”remarked Ben, leading the way to the edge of the chasm. The blue smokeof the explosion still curled up from it; but when they threw down somerocks by way of experiment, no answering hiss came back. Modern dynamitehad wiped out the Toltecs’ watch-dogs.