THE SIGNS IN STONES
"We thought he'd send the shot off before we got up the ladders!"
exclaimed Dick. "We're expecting to hear the roar of it every minute
now!"
"Perhaps something went wrong," suggested Will.
"What part of the mine is he in?" asked Jimmie.
Tommy explained the location of the cross cutting and Jimmie gave a
whistle of dismay. In a moment he asked:
"Was he cutting into one of the pillars?"
"Yes," was the answer, "he was getting ready to blow it down with
dynamite. It's a wonder we don't hear the explosion!"
"If the spot where he's working is the place I think it is," Jimmie
continued, "the gink stands a pretty good chance of finding something.
We've been searching in that chamber, and just before you boys showed
up tonight we thought we were on the right track. Whether the money
is there or not, it is a sure thing that the walls of the chamber have
been tampered with. We think, though, that the money is there!"
"Then we mustn't let Ventner get it!" exclaimed Will.
"It won't do him any good to get it after that stick of dynamite
explodes!" exclaimed Tommy. "It'll blow him to Kingdom Come."
"Well, why don't we go down and see about it?" asked Will
"Not for me!" exclaimed Tommy.
"He may blow his own head off if he wants to," Dick put in, "but he
can't blow off mine, not with my consent. I've got only one head!"
"I don't believe there's going to be any explosion at all!" exclaimed
Elmer. "He wouldn't be apt to lay a fuse that would burn fifteen or
twenty minutes, and you've certainly been that length of time coming
up here, to say nothing of the time we've been talking!"
"All right!" Tommy exclaimed. "Perhaps he was loading up that pillar
with dynamite just for the fun of it!"
"It would be a nice thing to have him blow that money out of the
pillar and get away with it, wouldn't it?" scoffed Will.
"Come on, then," shouted Tommy, "I can take you to the firing line in
about a minute. If you want to see an earthquake in a coal mine, just
come along with me! You'll see it, all right!"
The boys left the old tool house without spending any more time in
conversation, and hastened down the ladders to the lower level. On
the way down the last gangway they heard some one moving about in the
darkness, and then came a cry of warning.
"Stand clear! Stand clear!"
"That's Ventner's voice!" exclaimed Will.
"There's a blast going off in a minute!" the voice came again.
"Now we've gone and done it!" exclaimed Will. "After all the trouble
we've taken to make that fellow think we've left the country, we've
let him bump right into us. I wonder if he really has fired the
fuse?"
"Stand clear! Stand clear!" shouted the voice. Almost before the
words had died out, the explosion came, tearing more than one pillar
out of position and dropping a great mass of slate down on the floor of
the cross-cutting.
For a moment the gases which filled the chambers were overpowering.
The only wonder was that they were not ignited. The electric lights
carried by the boys shone dimly through the smoke of the confined
place.
"There goes Ventner," whispered Will, pointing to a figure moving
swiftly through the half-light of the place.
"He's going to see what the shot brought down!" suggested Tommy.
The Boys rushed forward in a little group. When they gathered at the
scene of the explosion, the detective was not there.
"If he got hold of the cash, he knew what to do with it all right!"
exclaimed Tommy. "He got away with it before we got a chance to see
what he had. Now we've got to catch him!"
"May as well look for a needle in a load of hay!" grumbled Sandy.
"Look here," Jimmie exclaimed. "There's away to keep him shut up in
the mine if we do the right thing. This cross-cutting runs out to a
gangway on the north, and that, in turn, leads, of course, to the
shaft. Now, one of you boys duck out to the shaft and see that he
doesn't get up. You'll have to go some on the way there, because a
man with two hundred thousand dollars in his pocket will put up some
running match!"
"I'm off!" shouted Tommy. "I know I can get to the shaft before he
can! He's too fat-bellied to run, anyway!"
Tommy started away at a swift pace, and the other boys closed in on
the gangway, Will alone stopping at the scene of the explosion.
"This gangway," Dick explained, "runs back into the mine for some
distance, but there are no cross passages. I guess the coal wasn't
very good here. At least, they never spread out the drive."
"Then we've got him bottled up unless he got out of the shaft!"
declared Sandy. "We'll soon know whether he got out or not!"
"I don't believe he would try to get out," suggested Elmer. "The
chances are that he'd make for the back of the mine, thinking to hide
away with the plunder, provided he had any plunder to hide away with."
"I'm afraid he found the hidden money," Will said, taking a scorched
ten-dollar bill from a pocket. "I found this back there, where the
pillar fell. I guess he found the cash all right!"
"And that's a nice thing, too!" exclaimed Sandy. "You boys kept
saying that Ventner was helping you find the coin. You were right
about that, for he did find the coin. And now the trick is to get it
away from him!"
"I'd like to know whether Ventner got up the shaft or not,"' suggested
George, "and I believe I'll take a run up there and see."
"That's a good idea!" advised Will. "If he didn't get up the shaft
he's surely imprisoned in the gangway. He may be between this
cross-cutting and the shaft, or he may have gone further in!"
"It'll take a long time to find out about that," suggested Jimmie.
Directly Tommy and George were heard returning from the shaft. They
came through the gangway flashing their lights in every direction.
"He never went up the shaft!" Tommy exclaimed as they came near.
"We've got him canned in the mine all right. If he's got the money,
we'll take it away from him! He wouldn't know what to do with it
anyway!"
"First," suggested Will, "we'd better make sure that the fellow got
the money. The bank note I found may have never been in the
possession of Mr. Carson. And even if it was, it may be the only one
to be blown out of its hiding place by the explosion. It strikes me
that we'd better give the place a thorough search before we waste much
time looking for Ventner. If, as Tommy says, he never left the mine
by way of the shaft, we've got him blocked in, all right!"
The boys now began a careful examination of the cross-cutting where
the explosion had taken place. As has been stated, more than one
pillar had been blown out. There was a great heap of debris on floor,
and this the boys attacked with a vim.
Tommy and George were now standing guard at mouth of the cross-cutting
so that no one could pass down the gangway toward the shaft.
"Suppose that fellow did get the money?" asked Sandy, as the boys
cleared away the heaps of slate, "what then?"
"Then we'll have to take it away from him."
"We'll catch him first."
"We've got him blocked in, haven't we?" asked Sandy.
"Oh, we know that he can't get out," Dick cut in, "but we know, too,
that there are a lot of shallow benches along that gangway. We can't
walk in and pick him out in a minute. Besides," the boy continued,
"when we find him, we may find his pockets empty."
"That's just what we will do!" Elmer agreed. "He'll hide the money in
another place, and swear that he never found it!"
"I wish we'd kicked him out of the mine!" exclaimed Sandy.
The boys continued the search until daylight, and then, leaving Tommy
and George still on guard, they went up to the old tool house for
breakfast. The lads were by no means elated over what had taken
place. They believed that Ventner had succeeded in finding the money,
and were certain that, even if located in the mine, he would deny any
knowledge of it.
"I guess we got you boys into a mess by insisting on having the
detective roaming around," admitted Elmer, as the boys were eating a
hastily prepared breakfast. "I guess we should have listened to you
in regard to that. There is no knowing how much trouble we have
made!"
"He may help us find the money after all!" laughed Will.
"Yes," cut in Sandy, "it may be easier to get it away from him than to
find the place where it was hidden."
"Oh, yes, if we could lay our hands on him and order him to give up
two hundred thousand dollars, and he, would say: 'Yes, I've been
waiting to find the owner,' that would be all right, too! But the
thing isn't likely to turn out in that way! He'll hide the money,
and swear he never found it! Then, when everything quiets down,
he'll sneak back and get it!"
This from Jimmie, who seemed to a take a rather gloomy view of the
situation. The boys remained at the old tool house only a short time.
Their minds were fixed so intently on the work in hand that they
hardly knew whether they had had any breakfast at all.
As they passed down the ladders to the lower level, they heard
something which resembled a shot, and almost tumbled over each other
going down into the gangway. Will and Elmer were first to reach the
cross-heading where the explosion of dynamite had taken place.
They called to Tommy and George, but received no answer. They walked
for some distance down the gangway without hearing any sound
indicating the presence of their companions, or of any one else.
"Now that's a funny thing!" exclaimed Will. "I don't see why those
boys should go rambling about the mine at a time like this just for
the fun of the thing!"
"They never did!" replied Elmer. "You remember the shot we heard?"
"It might not have been a shot!" suggested Will.
As the boy spoke he bent over and pointed to stones lying on the floor
of the gangway.
"There!" he said. "The boys have left a record. They not only point
out the trail, but warn us that there is danger in following it!"