CHAPTER XIX.
WHAT WAS FOUND UNDERGROUND.
While Fremont was clambering down the eastern slope, studying therenegade Englishman whenever opportunity offered, and puzzling over thesource of the fellow's information concerning the Cameron building andthe Tolford estate papers, Ned Nestor and his companions were preparingto visit the interior of the strange shelter-place in which they foundthemselves.
The outer chamber, which, for convenience they marked "Chamber A" onthe rough map they afterward made, was 30x40 feet in size, with theeastern side running parallel with the almost perpendicular face ofrock which shot upward from the shelf which has before been alluded to.The opening faced directly east, and from it one could look miles overthe desert of sand lying between the foot of the range and the RioGrande del Norte, something like a hundred miles away.
To the north and south of this main chamber the boys found niches inthe rock, evidently hewn there by man hundreds of years before. Therock was very hard here, and it seemed that work had ceased for thatreason.
On the west side of the chamber there were two openings, perhaps fourfeet by six, each leading into a chamber 20x30 feet in size. Beforeentering these rooms, which held an odor of dampness and decay, therecently arrived Black Bears produced electric flashlights.
"We looked up Old Mexico," Harry Stevens said, turning on the flame,"and knew we'd be nosing around in caves and tunnels before we got backto God's country, so we brought our glims along with us."
"Well, don't burn them all at once," advised Nestor. "We shall needthem for several days, probably, and there are no shops in the nextblock where dry batteries can be bought. Leave one out and put therest away."
"We have a few extra batteries," said Harry. "We looked out for that."
"We shall doubtless need all you have, no matter how economically theyare used," Nestor said. "Let me take the one you have, and I'll go onan exploring expedition into the south chamber."
"Me for the exploring expedition too!" cried Harry. "I want to see howit seems to go into a room ten thousand years old."
"Nixt ten thousand years!" observed Jimmie.
Harry nudged Peter Fenton and pointed to the west wall of the chamber,across which he threw the brilliant circle of the flashlight.
"There is the record," he said.
"Nix ten thousand years old!" insisted Jimmie.
"No one knows how old," Fenton said. "No one has ever been able totranslate the picture talk of the very early inhabitants. The man whocarved those lines might have existed when the sandy desert out therewas under water."
"Speaking of water, let's go on and see where they got theirdrinkings," put in Frank Shaw. "I'm nearly choked, and I'll betthere's a spring about here somewhere."
"Any old time you don't want something to eat or drink!" laughed Harry."Well," he added, handing the flashlight to Nestor, "we may as well goin and see if there is a water system here."
"There surely is," Fenton said. "The people who dug this shelter outdid not work where there was no water. If Nature did not supply it,they built aqueducts to convey it to locations where it was wanted.But Professor Agassiz says they lived ten thousand years ago, so, ifthey did put in a water system here, it may be out of commission now."
"How does he know how long ago they lived?" asked Jack.
"By their bones," was the reply. "Near New Orleans, under foursuccessive forests, one on top of the other, and each showing traces ofhaving been occupied by man, explorers recently discovered a humanskeleton estimated to be fifty thousand years old. That fellow musthave lived just after the last glacial epoch."
"I don't believe they know anything about how long ago he lived,"observed Jimmie. "How can any one tell how long ago the last glacialepoch closed?"
"Figure out how far the melting line traveled from south to north,"said Fenton, "then figure that the glaciers receded at the rate of onlytwelve feet every hundred years, and you'll know something about it."
"Come on!" cried Frank, "let's get in there and find their Crotonsystem. I'm so thirsty my throat sizzles. Come on!"
Nestor, closely followed by the others, led the way into the southchamber, called, for convenience, "Chamber B" on the rough map madelater on. The place was damp and cold, and a current of air came fromthe southwest corner, indicating an opening there.
After clearing away a heap of rocks and loose sand, which might oncehave been rock, the boys found an opening which had been, apparently,closed for a long period of time. When finally cleared, after an hourof hard work, the opening from which the current of air had come wasdiscovered to be a door like arch in the west wall of the main chamber.
The electric flashlight, however, when introduced into the opening,showed a narrow passage beyond the opening instead of a square room.This tunnel-like passage was not far from six feet in width and aboutthat in height. The walls showed that it had been cut through solidrock.
The boys listened for some indication of life or motion in the tunnel,but all was silent. Not even a bird or creeping thing disturbed thestillness of the place.
"Shall we go in now?" asked Nestor.
"Sure!" replied Shaw. "We may find a well in there!"
"Or a soda fountain, or a modern filter," grinned Jimmie. "How wouldthey ever get a well down through this mountain?"
"Water in wells comes from elevations before it gravitates to thebottom of the holes from which we pump it," Shaw declared, in defenseof his suggestion. "There may be a reservoir here somewhere."
"How far is this cavern floor from the surface above it?" asked HarryStevens, with a judicial air.
"About four hundred feet," was the reply. "We must be about thatdistance from the highest point here."
"Then there is no reason why there should not be a reservoir above us,"said Harry. "Water would filter through these rocks, all right."
The boys passed on in a southwesterly direction to the end of thetunnel, which was about fifty feet from the opening. Here they found achamber about 10x16 feet in size. At the south side of this chamberwas a trough-shaped place cut in the rock, and through this a smallrivulet of water ran.
"I knew the people who built this shop wouldn't put in their time whereno water could be procured," declared Fenton. "Why, this is simplyfort, a mountain residence, where valley people came in time of war andsecreted themselves. If we could read the hieroglyphics on the walls,we would be able to write a history of their troubles."
"Were they the real thing in cave-dwellers?" asked Jack, who was notnoted for his studious habits, and who depended on his companions for aknowledge of the countries he visited as a member of the Black BearPatrol.
"Earlier than some of the cave-men," replied Harry. "I wonder if thiswater is any good to drink?" he added, looking longingly at the crystalstream flowing under the round circle of the flashlight. "Who wants totry it?"
Frank Shaw did not wait to make many tests. Tormented with thirst, hefelt of the water by rubbing it between his thumb and fingers, smelledof it, put it cautiously to his lips, and then, experiencing no badeffects from this contact, took a few drops into his mouth.
"It is fine!" he shouted, then. "Cold as ice and sweet as sugar! Thisbeats a soda fountain, Jimmie!"
"Now, was this tunnel constructed on purpose to reach this spring?"asked Harry.
The lads examined the walls minutely, but there was no opening from thechamber, save the one by which they had entered.
"This must have been the milk house," laughed Frank, always ready toturn any subject under discussion into a joke. "I wonder if they kepttheir cows on the top of the peak? If they had tied their tailstogether and put one over each side, they never could have run away."
On their way back to Chamber B the boys discovered an opening in thenorth wall of the tunnel. This led to another tunnel, running in anorthwesterly direction for about one hundred feet and ending in achamber larger than any of the others. Nestor caught sight of asparkle on the walls as he swung the
flashlight about and pointedglittering sections out to the boys.
"Gold!" cried Frank.
"I'll bet a cooky we've found the hidden mine!" cried Jimmie.
"It is gold, all right," Harry Stevens said, "but there's no knowingwhether it is here in quantities sufficient to pay the expense ofmining and crushing the ore."
"Huh!" cried Jimmie, in a tone of reproach. "Don't you know that rockthat will produce a dollar a tone is worth working? Well, then, lookat this! There's ten dollars worth in the spot I cover with my hand!We've found somethin', boys!"
"So it wasn't to escape their enemies that the old chaps sequesteredthemselves here," said Fenton. "It was to dig out gold!"
"I never heard that there was gold in this part of Mexico," observedJack. "I reckon we'll wake up when we get out into the sunlight."
"If you'll read up," Fenton replied, "you'll find that the state ofChihuahua abounds in niter and other salts, and is rich in mines ofgold and silver. Do you really think we have come upon the desertedmine Jimmie talks about so much?" he added, turning to Nestor.
The latter took a folded paper from his pocket and examined it underthe light of the electric torch.
"It seems that we have," was the reply. "I was not thinking much aboutthe mine as I ascended the mountain, but now it strikes me that Iunconsciously followed the directions given in this paper."
"That big lobster of an Englishman was looking for the mine," Jimmiesaid, "and so it was natural that he should lead you to it. I can'tsee how it belongs to any old estate, though," he added. "Looks likeeverybody's property to me."
"Perhaps it was the knowledge of the whereabouts of the mine that hadvalue," suggested Nestor, "and not the fact of ownership. Anyway, we'vefound it."
The walls of the cavern appeared to blaze with gold, in flakes and insmall nuggets. Here and there were empty pockets which appeared tohave been stripped of their rich holdings. Upon inspection the floorof the chamber was found to be covered, in places, with crushed rock,where blocks cut from the walls had been broken up.
"There is no knowing how many million dollars worth of gold have beentaken from here," Nestor said, "and there is no way of estimating, atthis time, how far this rich rock extends into the mountain. The factthat the mine was abandoned may indicate that the ore became lessvaluable as the workers cut out from the center."
"It is rich enough now to pay for working, all right! cried Jimmie.
"There appears to be millions in sight," Nestor said, putting away hispaper.