CHAPTER XXX SECRET ENTRANCE TO THE ROCK HOUSE
The boys took turns in throwing the sand out of the crack. The faces ofthe three girls, standing idly near, expressed different emotions. Mary'ssweet sensitive mouth and tender eyes were wistful, almost sad. She wasnot thinking of the secret entrance. Dora, watching her, was troubled andwished she knew just what Mary was thinking. Etta, alone, watched theboys as they threw shovelsful of sand out of the crack. Her eyes shonewith a new light. Dora, glancing at her, wondered if she were watchingJerry's splendid strength as he hurled the sand. Once he caught herencouraging glance and smiled at her.
Etta turned and, seeing Mary beside her, she slipped an arm about her.With a fleeting return of her old seriousness, she said, "You girls can'tknow what it means to me to be included in all this. I've been so lonelyfor companions of my own age."
Mary was about to say that she was glad, also, when a shout from the boysattracted their attention. They hurried toward the crack where the threediggers stood intently examining something they had uncovered.
It was a huge stone about three feet round which leaned against a hole inthe base of the cliff.
"That hole _must_ be the secret entrance." Dick glowed around with thepride of discovery. "The rock caught and held the sand, you see," heexplained to the girls.
"Not so fast, old man." Harry Hulbert was measuring the space between therock and the hole. "If Mr. Pedersen buried himself alive up there in hisrock house, he _had_ to have room to crawl _into_ his entrance. You'llall agree to that."
They silently nodded, then Jerry said, "I reckon Sven Pedersen was verythin, sick as he was."
Etta alertly suggested, "I think the hole might have been uncovered then,but that the weight of the sand has gradually pushed the rock downagainst the opening."
"Righto!" Jerry's smile was approving.
Dora remarked, "Since we are not hunting for the old man's bones, isn'tthe important question whether or not this hole leads up into the rockhouse?"
"And the only way to find out is to get this stone out of the way," Dicktold them. "Now everybody push."
It was a difficult task and after what seemed a long hard effort, therewas barely room for one of the boys to get in.
Jerry crawled into the hole but backed out almost at once.
"It's black as a pocket," he reported. "It would be foolhardy to go inuntil we have a light."
"I'll get one," Dick volunteered. "The Deputy Sheriff has a powerfulflash in his car. Back in a minute."
While he was gone, Jerry told his impressions of the hole.
"It seems to be a slanting tunnel, not high enough to stand in. I reckonthat at some past time it was made by rushing water, it's worn sosmooth."
"Oh, Jerry, please don't go in there all alone." It was Mary imploring."I'm smaller than you are. Let me go with you."
Jerry's grateful glance was infinitely tender and so was his voice as hereplied, "Little Sister, I'll be careful not to run into danger."
Again he crawled into the hole. The watching young people saw the flashof the light, then they heard his voice sounding uncanny and far off."The tunnel goes up, sort of like a waterfall. I reckon I can climb itall right, but don't anybody try to follow me, lest-be I'm gone too long;more than fifteen minutes, say."
The color left Mary's face and she clung to Dora, but she tried not tolet the others see how truly anxious she was.
"One minute." Dick was looking at his watch.
Harry on his knees peered up into the darkness, but could not even seeJerry's light.
"Five minutes," Dick reported.
Mary asked tremulously, "That couldn't be the cave of a mountain lion ora puma or a--"
"Nixy on that!" Dick replied emphatically. "No wild animal, not even myfriend, a Gila Monster, would care to try to climb _that_ smooth tobogganslide. Puzzle to me is how Jerry is doing it."
"Hark!" Mary whispered, holding up one finger. "Did you hear--"
Dick plunged in with "a gun shot?"
"Not at all!" Mary flared at him. She ran to the hole and knelt by it andlistened. "I thought I heard Jerry call far, _far_ away," she said as shestood up and went back to stand by Dora.
"Ten minutes." Dick glanced from his watch to Harry. "Go back a way, willyou, and look up at the rock house. If Jerry called, maybe it was from upthere."
Mary, no longer trying to hide her anxiety, ran beyond the leaning ledgeand looked up. How her face shone with joy and relief!
"It's Jerry!" she cried, beckoning the others. "He's up there standing inthe door."
Harry cupped one hand about his ear. "What say, Jerry? All right. Surething."
"What did he say?" Jerry had disappeared in the house when the othersjoined Mary and Harry.
"He said there's an old wire ladder contraption that he's going to dropdown to us," Harry explained as Jerry reappeared on the ledge. Graduallya wire-rope ladder slid down the steep cliff.
"Dick, you and Harry come on up," Jerry called. "It's safe all right."
"You girls won't mind being left alone, will you?" Harry asked in hischivalrous way, of all of them, although he looked at Mary.
"No, indeed," she replied. "Go along."
The boys went up the swaying ladder so easily that Mary, usually the lesscourageous one of the two, said to Dora, "I'm going up. Catch me if Ifall."
The three boys were in the rock house and did not know that the girls hadclimbed the ladder until they saw them standing near the open door.
Jerry leaped toward them. "Little Sister," he said, "_what_ if you hadfallen?"
Dora thought complacently, "Well, I guess _that_ lover's misunderstandingis patched up all right. It didn't matter, evidently, whether or not Ettafell, and as for Dora Bellman--" she laughed and shrugged her broad,capable shoulders.
Mary was asking, "Has anyone seen the Evil Eye Turquoise?"
"Not yet. Come, let's look for it," the cowboy called, adding, as heturned to his neighbor, "Etta, I didn't tell you that part of the story,did I?"
Smilingly, and evidently untroubled by the recent by-play between thecowboy and Mary, she replied in the negative. So, standing near the opendoor, they all told parts of the tale to the interested listener.
"But if something terrible _always_ happens when that turquoise eye looksat an intruder," Etta said, "aren't you afraid something terrible willhappen now?"
"I reckon I _would_, if I believed the yarn," Jerry replied. "Let's see!Where was it?"
"In the back wall, gazing _straight out_ of the front door," Maryreminded him.
"Well, it isn't there _now_ anyway." Harry fearlessly had crossed thesmall bare room to investigate.
"But it must have been there," Dick insisted. "Don't you remember thatSmart Aleky fellow who _did_ climb up and who really _did_ fall over thecliff, paralyzed, when he saw the Evil Eye?"
"I reckon we do," Jerry agreed. Having found a stout stick cane in onecorner, he poked it into the sand that covered the floor.
"Hi-ho!" he cried. "I see what's happened. The Eye fell off of the walland is buried here in the sand."
"Bully for you!" Dick shouted, and before any of them could stop him, hehad seized the fateful stone and had turned the flashlight full upon it.Mary screamed and clutched Dora, but they had all looked at the Eye and_it_ had looked at them, yet nothing had happened.
Dora, secretly proud of Dick's courage, asked, "What is it made of?"
"You impostor!" Dick hissed at the Eye. "You are only adobe with a bluestone in your middle." Then calmly he pocketed it as he grinninglyannounced, "Nobody objecting, I'm going to keep it for Lucky Stone and apaper weight."
"Ugh!" Mary shuddered. "You're welcome to it."
Dora was asking, "Where do you think we'd better look for the money?"
"In the old codger's tomb, I should say." Harry was greatly enjoying hisshare in this rather uncanny adventure.
They all agreed that the walled-in tomb would be the most likely
place tofind the treasure.
Jerry looked anxiously at the three girls who stood close togetherwatching, wide-eyed. "I reckon you all ought to have stayed down below,"he told them.
Dora replied courageously, "Oh, don't mind us. Open up the tomb if youwant. There won't be anything but a skeleton, and we see those every dayon the desert."
Harry and Dick, prying around, discovered a large stone that was loose,but when it was lifted out, they found only a small niche. _In it was aniron box which the boys removed. Then they replaced the stone._ After allthey had not needed to open up the tomb.
When they all had descended the wire-rope ladder, they left it hanging,believing that some day they might want to revisit the rock house.
"Now," Jerry said, "let's take the box to Sister Theresa."