CHAPTER XVI.
“UNDERGROUND!”
Harry Ware struck another match. This time the two imprisoned lads didnot bother to look above them. They knew that escape in that directionwas an impossibility. Instead, they turned their attention to theirimmediate surroundings.
Suddenly Percy Simmons gave a cry of triumph.
“Look! See there, Hardware, old boy, isn’t that a crack or fissure inthe rock?”
“Sure enough,” responded his companion, who had just time to notice thecrack in the rock wall of their prison before the light of the matchdied out.
“Maybe we can get out that way,” sputtered Persimmons, all agog at thethought that a means of escape had been opened to them.
“Perhaps we can, but it looks pretty narrow,” responded Hardwaredubiously. “Anyhow, it’s worth trying. Strike another match and we’llhave a good look at it.”
A second inspection showed the boys that the fissure, though narrow,was sufficiently wide for them to squeeze into in all probability.Although in the event that it grew smaller further on, they would beas badly off as before. Still, as Harry Ware had said, it was worthtrying, and the two boys clambered off the body of the unfortunate ponyand began forcing their way into the fissure. Harry Ware went first andPercy Simmons, who was stouter, followed close behind.
For a distance of some five feet they managed to forge ahead. Butsuddenly Persimmons gave a grunt.
“I’m stuck, Harry, I can’t get any further.”
“Too bad; I guess we’ll have to turn back,” Hardware started to say,when he gave a cry of delight.
“It’s all right. It broadens out beyond here. Come on, Percy, you cansqueeze through alright.”
“I’ll try,” declared the stouter of the two youths valiantly, and, witha violent effort, he forced himself forward. It cost him almost allthe breath in his body, but he succeeded in passing the narrow placeand then found himself beside his companion in what appeared to be amuch larger space beyond. Another match was struck which revealed theplace into which they had forced their way as a circular cave with adome-like roof from which water dripped in a constant shower.
It was cold and damp and the boys shuddered as the water, which was icycold, pattered about them as if a violent rainstorm was in progress.
“Ugh! What sort of a place have we landed in now, I’d like to know,”muttered Percy Simmons. “Shivering snakes, it’s like a Cave of theRains, or something of that kind.”
“That’s so. We can’t stay here; it’s like being in a damp ice box. Wemust find some way out.”
“Where do you suppose we are, anyhow?”
“Evidently in some subterranean cavern or passage that runs under thehillside.”
“The question is, where does it come out?”
“That’s what we’ll have to see. There must be a way out.”
“Oh, of course,” assented Persimmons with suspicious eagerness.
Neither boy dared to admit, even to himself, that it was altogether apossibility that there might not be any way out; in which case theywould be in as bad a fix as before. As for waiting at the bottom of thehole down which White-eye had pulled them, it was beginning to growpainfully apparent that they might stand a good chance of remainingthere till Doomsday without anyone discovering their whereabouts.
Once more matches were struck and they gazed eagerly about them. Theyfully realized now that it was becoming a matter of life and death tothem to find some means of escape from this underground prison intowhich, through no fault of their own, they had blundered.
But rigidly as they inspected their prison, it was some time beforethey found that on one side of the cavern a low archway in the rock ledinto what appeared to be another rift in the rocky formation underlyingthe mountain side.
“Shall we try it?” asked Hardware as his sixth match fluttered out.
“Unanimous unicorns, yes!” was the energetic reply. “We can’t stayhere, and it’s no use going back.”
“Good, the word is forward, then.”
Hardware, as he spoke, bent low to get under the archway of livingrock, which, centuries before, had been tunneled out during somedisturbance of the earth, and once more the boys found themselves in anarrow rift through which they could barely squeeze.
“Gracious, if this gets any narrower we are stuck for fair,” gaspedPersimmons, as they shoved and panted through the darkness.
“Don’t think of that; just say to yourself, ‘We’ve got to get out ofthis,’” urged young Simmons’ companion.
In this way they went forward for some distance further when the riftbegan to widen once more. Suddenly they collided with a solid wall ofrock. It appeared that the rift had come to an end.
“Shivering centipedes, we’re stuck!” groaned Persimmons abjectly.
“Hold on a minute,” counseled his companion, “wait till I strikeanother match. Thank goodness, we brought a good supply of them.”
“Yes, it’s a lucky thing that Mountain Jim insisted on our filling thematch safes. We’d be in an awful fix without them.”
To the huge delight of the boys, the light showed them that the riftbranched off in two directions at the point they had reached. They hadbumped into the rocky wall that formed the apex of the triangle atwhich the two new passages met the old one.
But now they faced a fresh problem. Which passage would they take?They tossed a coin. Heads would be the right-hand one, tails the left.The coin indicated the right-hand rift and into it, accordingly, theystruck off. The floor of the passage appeared to rise abruptly and theysoon found their further progress blocked by a rocky wall.
“Perishing panhandles, what’ll we do now?” gasped young Simmons.
“Try the other one,” was his companion’s brief response.