MINE RATS READY FOR WAR
"Wait till I destroy this hen fruit," Elmer said, "and I'll go down
and bring those two foolish youngsters up with me. It's time we had
an understanding with you boys. You're here looking for something,
and we're here looking for something. Perhaps we would meet with
better success if we talked over our plans."
"What are you looking for?" demanded Tommy.
"Keep it dark," grinned Elmer. "I'm not going to tell you a thing
until I bring Jimmie and Dick up here so they can get next to the
whole story! I guess you boys can work together without scrapping,
can't you?"
"When we find the boys," laughed Will, "our job will come to an end!"
"You just wait till I go and bring up Jimmie and Dick, and I'll tell
you all about it! I won't be gone more than a minute."
"So that's what you came down here after, isn't it?"
"Yes, we came here to dig two boys out of a mine."
"I don't believe it!" replied Elmer.
"We came here from Chicago for that very purpose," went on Will.
"Who sent you here?" asked Elmer.
"Lawyer Horton."
"Then Lawyer Horton didn't tell you the 'whole story,'" laughed Elmer.
"He held out on you boys just to see if you wouldn't get the story at
the mine. Of course he didn't know where we were at the time he sent
you down here, but he never sent you for the express purpose of
finding us!"
"Then why did he send us?" asked Tommy.
"You just wait till I go and bring up Jimmie and Dick, and I'll tell
you all about it! I won't be gone more than a minute."
"But hold on," cried Sandy. "You mustn't go chasing down into the mine
now. That bum detective is there, and we don't want him to know that
we're anywhere within a hundred miles of this place."
"He doesn't know that we're here, either," commented Elmer. "His
notion is that he drove us all into the next state when he caused the
mine to be flooded. He thinks he has the whole mine to himself, now."
"So he caused the mine to be flooded, did he?"
"Sure he did," was the curt reply. "The boys saw him digging away at
the wall which protects this dry mine from the wet one next door."
"So you saw him doing it, did you?"
"I didn't, because I haven't been in the mine before any length of
time, but Jimmie and Dick saw him.
"We've been told that he made the trouble," Will agreed, "but we
weren't so very sure of it, after all. At least, we didn't have the
proof. He ought to get twenty years for that!"
"Well, if you keep asking me questions all night," Elmer declared,
"I'll never get the boys up here, and you'll never know why you were
sent here! You can come along with me if you want to."
"But how about this detective?" insisted Sandy.
"We ought to be able to get the boys up here, without letting him know
that we are in the mine," answered Elmer. "We needn't travel with a
fife and drum corps ahead of us, nor even carry any lights down with
us. He's probably working in some inside chamber."
"All right," Will answered, "we've had our trip through the mine
tonight, so we'll let Tommy and Sandy go with you. Are you sure the
boys will come if you ask them to?"
"Sure they'll come!" was the reply.
The two boys drew on their rubber boots with which they had provided
themselves before taking up their quarters in the mine, and which they
had been too excited to use on a previous occasion, and Will loaned a
pair to Elmer, then they started down the ladders.
"It would be something of a joke if we should butt into that detective
now, wouldn't it?" Sandy laughed, as they passed down from the second
level.
"I shouldn't consider it much of a joke," replied Tommy. "We took a
lot of pains to make him think we'd gone out of town!"
As the boys walked softly down the center gangway they heard a fall of
rock which seemed to come from the passage next north. This
passageway was connected by the main one with a cross-heading,
situated perhaps three hundred feet from the shaft.
"I don't know much about mines," whisper Elmer as the boys stopped and
listened to the clatter of the rocks as they settled down on the floor
of the cavern, "but that sounds to me a whole lot like a fall from the
roof. I hope the boys are not injured."
The boys walked faster until they came to the cross-passage and then
turned to the right. Just as they left the main gangway, they heard
the sound of running feet and directly the distant creaking the ladder
rungs.
"Some one's making a hot-foot for the surface!" exclaimed Tommy.
"That's Ventner!" declared Sandy.
"How do you know that?"
"Because he wears heavy boots. We have rubbers, me and Dick, and
Jimmie and Dick, who are down in the mine, are also wearing rubber
boots!"
"The farther he gets away from the mine, the better it will suit me,"
Elmer broke in. "I wish he'd go away and stay for a hundred years."
"The chances are that he dug away one of the pillars and caused that
drop from the roof," suggested Sandy.
"I guess that's all right, too," Elmer argued. "If he's been digging
around here the way the boys say he has, he's certainly taking chances
on cutting down more than one column. He ought to be fired out of the
mine!"
The boys now came to a chamber across the entrance to which a great
mass of shale had been thrown when the fall from the roof took place.
At first they listened, fearful that they would hear voices of the
lads they were in search of beyond the wall, possibly crushed under
the weight of the of stone. Then they passed along for a short
distance and peered into the chamber over the heap of refuse.
What they saw brought excited exclamations to their lips.
Jimmie and Dick stood in the interior of the chamber, hedged in by
fallen debris. They were swinging their searchlights frantically from
side to side, and, while the boys looked, they began the utterance of
such yells as had never before been heard in that gloomy place.
"What's the trouble?" asked Elmer, showing his light at the narrow
opening between the roof of the chamber and the pile of refuse.
"Oh, you're there, are you?" asked one of the boys. "We thought
perhaps you'd gone back to New York and left us to starve to death."
"Well, you didn't starve, did you?" asked Elmer.
"Wow, wow, wow!" yelled Jimmie.
"Now, what is it?" asked Elmer.
"Rats!" yelled the boy. "Millions of rats! They're creeping out by
the regiment from the cribbing where we were hidden!"
"That idiot of a detective," the other boy went on, "undermined a
pillar and let about half an acre of roof down into this chamber.
When the roof fell, it broke the cribbing and the rats began pouring
out.
"They won't hurt you!" declared Tommy. "Only you mustn't go to
picking a quarrel with them. They're fighters when they get their
tempers up. Just let them alone and they'll let you alone!"
"Who's that talking?" demanded Jimmie.
"That's the relief expedition!" laughed Elmer.
"You ought to be fired out of the Wolf Patrol for not answering Boy
Scout signals!" Tommy broke in. "We called to you more than a dozen
times, and you never answered once!"
"Well, we had to wait until Elmer reported kind of fellows you were,
didn't we?" asked Dick. "We couldn't go and make friends with you
with knowing what you were here for, so we kept out of your way until
Elmer could find a way to learn more about you."
"And instead of finding a way," Jimmie took up the argument, "he goes
off and gets lost in a thicket about six feet square and never shows
up with any grub for twenty-four hours! So we had to go and steal
grub of the boys!"
"Yes, and we're going to have you pinched when you get out!" laughed
Tommy. "You'll get ninety days for that."
"Where'd that bum detective go?" asked Jimmie. "When the roof fell,
we heard him go clattering down the gangway running as though he had
only about thirty seconds in which to get to New York."
"He's a long distance from the mine by this time," Elmer suggested.
"Well," Jimmie said, "I don't like the company of these rats, so if
you'll kindly dig into the refuse on your side, we'll work from this
side and we'll soon be out. These rats look hostile."
"You let 'em alone!" advised Tommy.
"Yes, I'll let 'em alone -- not!" shouted Jimmie.
"You wait until I get an armful of rocks and I'll beat some of their
heads off!"
"For the love of Mike, don't do anything of the kind!" yelled Tommy.
"They'll climb onto you nine feet thick if you injure one of them!"
But it was too late! Jimmie acquired an armful of large sized pieces
of slate and began tossing them into the huddle of rats in the corner.
For an instant the rats squealed viciously as they wore struck by the
sharp edges of the slate, then they seemed to confer together for a
moment or two, then they spread out like a fan and began moving toward
the two boys.
"Now you've done it!" cried Tommy. "If you don't get out of. There in
about a second, the rats'll eat your legs off!"
Without waiting for the boys to assume the offensive, the rats began
screaming and springing at their feet.
The three boys on the outside of the barrier, understanding the peril
their friends were in, crawled up to the top of the wall of refuse
which shut the boys into the chamber and turned their lights inside.
It seemed to them then that the rats were two or, three deep on the
floor. There appeared to be hundreds--thousands of them. They
circled around the boys, becoming bolder every moment. They nipped at
the rubber boots and left the marks of their teeth on the tough
uppers.
"Now, boys," Tommy yelled, as they drew their automatics and leveled
them over the wall, "shoot to kill! This is no Sunday School picnic!
And while we're shooting, boys, you back up to this wall, and see if
you can't work your way to the top. If you can get up here, we can
manage to displace enough slate to let you through."
The boys fired volley after volley, but the rats came on viciously.