CHAPTER XVIII
THE FINDING OF WAGNER
"Good night!" cried Tommy.
The heavy footsteps came on faster than before. The ping of bullets wasin the air, and the old channel was filling with powder smoke. Now andthen the flash of a gun lit the passage.
"Me for the tall timber," Tommy went on, springing up the tunnel.
"Here! Where are you going?" shouted Will.
"There's a hiding place up here!" answered Tommy. "We saw it when wecame down! Me for the hiding place."
"That's a fact!" Will exclaimed turning to Chester. "You remember theold channel running in from the southeast?"
"We'll have to get somewhere right soon!" Chester answered. "Perhapsthat is as good a place as any."
Bullets singing down the narrow passage indicated that the sheriffs andtheir men had already entered the subterranean channel from above.
The train robbers were defending the passage heroically, but theofficers were coming bravely on.
Directly the boys came to the lead which cut the south wall of the mainchannel into the shape of a "W." They passed on up this dry channel justas the train robbers, retreating step by step, came to the entrance.
"Shoot to kill!" the boys heard one of the outlaws saying.
"Do you know the way to the other end?" asked the second outlaw.
"I've been told how to find it," was the answer, "but I never made myway through it. Those sheriffs are game to come crowding into a holelike this in front of two armed and desperate men."
"You get up against the real thing when you strike a Wyoming sheriff,"the other outlaw declared.
"Throw up your hands!" a heavy voice came from above.
"Come and take us!" was the only answer.
Another storm of bullets was followed by a groan of pain.
"They got me!" the boys heard one of the men say.
"They got me, too!" said the other. "It's a wonder we haven't been cutinto ribbons before this!"
"All we can do now is to lay down and shoot as long as we've gotammunition," the first speaker advised.
"You may as well surrender, boys!" They heard Sheriff Pete's heavy voicesaying. "I'm coming down there after you!"
The only answer from the outlaws was a volley of bullets, punctuatedwith oaths. Tommy turned to Will with a low chuckle.
"This seems to be a nice quiet Boy Scout excursion, doesn't it?" heasked. "We come up on the mountains to have a pleasant vacation, and webutt into a scene that wouldn't be admitted to the stage of any theatrebecause the critics would say that it wasn't true to life!"
"We certainly do strike life in the raw!" replied Will.
"Are you going to surrender?" shouted the sheriff from above.
"I'll bet they don't," whispered George.
"You're on!" Tommy shouted. "I'll bet they do."
The boys listened anxiously for the reply.
"I'm coming down there now!" they heard Sheriff Pete say.
"There isn't one man in a million who would dare walk into a trap likethis," Will mused. "I wonder if this sheriff we've been finding faultwith will have the nerve to do it."
"You see if he hasn't got the nerve to do it," Tommy answered.
The outlaws fired once more, and then the boys heard their weaponsclattering down the tunnel.
"That's the stuff, boys!" the sheriff said.
They heard him sliding and scrambling down the channel, and turned ontheir flashlights. The sheriff paused with an exclamation of surprise,but came steadily on in a moment, his deputies not far in the rear.
"Throw up your hands there, you with the light!" cried the officer.
"I ain't going to throw up my hands," Tommy called out with a chuckle,"but if it'll give you any satisfaction, I'll throw up my job as aman-hunter. I have no further use for it!"
"That must be the Boy Scouts," the voice of the Sweetwater sheriff said."I wonder how they got here."
As the officers came on under the rays of the searchlights, the boyshaving now stepped into the main tunnel, the outlaws stumbled to theirfeet and stood leaning against the wall. They were wounded in severalplaces and blood was flowing quite freely, but their jaws were set inlines of determination.
The sheriffs glanced keenly about and smiled as their eyes took in theboys grouped together in the tunnel.
"What about it?" asked Sheriff Pete.
"That's a long story," Will answered.
One of the outlaws now stepped forward, although he still held himselfupright by one hand on the wall.
"You're a nervy chap, Sheriff," he said.
"Turn and turn about is fair play!" replied the officer. "It isn't sovery long ago that you held me up."
"Any man can hold up another when he has a loaded gun in his face," saidthe outlaw.
"It strikes me," the sheriff said, "that you'd better be removed fromthis hole as quickly as possible. Your wounds probably need attention."
"We're not sobbing about the wounds," was the reply. "The only kickwe've got coming is that our ammunition gave out."
"You would have been taken in time!" was the reply.
"I guess that's right, with a man like you on our track, I've been in agood many tight spots but I never saw a man walk into a storm of bulletsand appear to like it as you have done today."
"Never mind that now," the Sheriff cut in. "We're going to get you outso you can do a little work for the state before you die."
"Say," Tommy exclaimed as the officers and prisoners started to climbthe steep tunnel, "when you get to the top have one of the men start abig fire. I'm so hungry that I could eat my way out of this rock like itwas cheese."
"What you going to cook?" asked Will.
"Bear steak," replied Tommy.
"That's a joke!" declared Chester.
"Joke is it?" exclaimed Tommy. "You wait till we get out there and seewhether it is or not. I went out after bear steak for breakfast, didn'tI? Well, I got it, didn't I?"
"Breakfast!" repeated George, rubbing his Stomach. "It must beafternoon, and I'm hungry enough to bite a corner off the MasonicTemple."
"One o'clock!" said Will, looking at his watch.
"Are you boys really going to cook breakfast in the cavern?" asked thesheriff. "Why not go to the camp?"
"Because we can't walk to camp without first acquiring sustenance!"chuckled Tommy. "I'm empty from the top of my head to the end of my bigtoe!"
"If you'll ask your men to gather a lot of dry wood," George suggested,"we'll have a lot of bear steak ready to eat in about ten minutes."
"But we haven't got any salt!" objected the sheriff.
"Don't you think we haven't got any salt," Tommy replied. "You never sawa Boy Scout go out into the woods without plenty of salt and matches.And don't you think we don't know how to build a fire with one match andbroil a steak over coals in ten minutes."
"All right!" laughed the sheriff. "You boys seem to be able to take careof yourselves."
"You didn't seem to think so a few hours ago," Will answered.
"There's one thing about you boys I really like," the sheriff returnedwith a hearty laugh. "The third degree makes about as much impression onyou as it would on the Sphinx or on the Goddess of Liberty in New Yorkharbor."
"That was the third degree, was it, then?" asked Will.
"Do you think I'd string up a lot of babies?" demanded the sheriff.
"Run along, now!" Tommy exclaimed. "Run along, Mr. Officer, and tellyour men to bring up a lot of dry wood."
The officers made their way out, followed by George and Tommy, but Willand Chester still remained under ground.
"Did you hear anything in this tunnel?" asked Chester.
"I thought I did hear a moan, but the sheriff was talking in that voiceof his at the time and I wasn't certain."
"Well," Chester said, "I believe father's in here somewhere."
"Why do you think that?"
"I've told you about how he wanted to move to this cavern, haven't I?And how he spen
t considerable time here?"
"You certainly have."
"And about my suspicions that he informed the outlaws of the undergroundpassages?"
"Yes, you told me all that."
"Then you heard what the robbers said about some one having moved thestone, or gone in during their absence?"
"I had entirely forgotten that!" declared Will.
"Well, then, don't you see," Chester continued, "that they must havebeen speaking of father? That's why I think he's in here."
"Perhaps we'd better follow this channel and see if we can find him,"Will suggested. "It does seem as if he might be here."
The bed of the old channel was very steep, and the boys scrambled up itwith difficulty. After proceeding a few paces they heard a low groan andtheir flashlight showed the figure of a man lying on a narrow ledge ofrock on the south side.
Chester darted forward instantly, almost falling on his face in hiseagerness to reach his father and bent over the figure.
"It's father!" he shouted back to Will.
"Alive?"
"I'm afraid not."
Will lost no time in gaining the boy's side.
The ex-convict lay with his face turned upward, his arms folded acrosshis breast. At first there were no indication of life.