A POWERFUL STREAM
"Better look out!" came the high-pitched voice of Yellin' Kid.
"There may be a flood here!" added Old Billee.
"Can't we get those rascals?" cried Snake Purdee. "I'd 'a' had th'
drop on 'em in another second if they hadn't doused that glim!"
As he spoke they could all hear the rush of iron-nailed shoes when the
wearers of them scrambled over hard rocks in their effort to escape.
Mingled with that sound was the strange one of rushing water.
Realizing that danger might come to them more through the agency of the
strangely-acting underground stream than from the actions of the
conspirators, Bud and Nort flashed their lanterns on the water-course
behind them and around the bend which they had turned to behold the
strange scene.
"It's going down!" cried Bud, for there was no longer any advantage in
concealment or silence, as long as Del Pinzo and the others had fled.
"It's receding!"
"Just as the other did!" added Dick. "They must have opened a gate
here and let the water out!"
"They've done something!" cried Bud, "and we've got to find out what it
is."
"Did you hear that about a fuse?" demanded Snake. "Maybe they're going
to blow the place up!"
"If they do, and the tunnel caves in, good-bye to my water!" said Bud.
"Yes, and good-night to _us_!" grimly added Old Billee.
"Come on!" cried Yellin' Kid. "Let's see what's up there in that hole
in the wall, anyhow!"
"And have your guns ready!" warned Snake Purdee.
However, as it developed, the weapons were not needed. When the boy
ranchers and their friends managed to scramble up the rocky way, above
and to the right of the second hidden, branching stream, and found
themselves in what was virtually a little natural recess hollowed out
of the rocky wall, they saw that it was deserted.
But there were plain evidences of the fact that the men they had seen
had fled in a hurry, as, indeed, they had practically witnessed.
Playing cards, cigarettes, tobacco and bottles were scattered on a rude
wooden table, and there were several candle-ends stuck in the necks of
flasks. The smell of the extinguished candles was heavy on the air.
"But where did they go?" asked Bud, when a hasty glance around the
rocky room disclosed no occupants.
"What's that?" asked Dick, pointing to what seemed to be a hole in the
floor at one corner.
"It's a passage!" cried Billee, holding his lantern above it. "An' big
enough, even for me! I'm going down!"
"Will it be safe?" asked Nort. "It may lead into the stream, or to
where they have planted a mine--they spoke of a fuse----"
"You've got to take chances in times like these!" declared Old Billee.
"I guess if they went down it will suit us."
"Unless they can close it up, or turn water in," suggested Snake,
dubiously.
"Git out! I'm going down!" stoutly declared the rather fleshy veteran
cow puncher, and when he let himself down the hole the others followed.
There was a natural stairway, or what served the same purpose, leading
down out of the stone room where the conspirators had been evidently
plotting so far underground. The passage went down, at first, like a
flight of steep, cellar stairs. Then it straightened out, and, after
twists and turns, led upward.
"Where are we going?" asked Nort.
"Nobody knows!" grimly answered Bud. "But it's safe so far!"
"And we're right on their trail!" added Snake.
"How do you know?" asked Billee.
For answer Snake paused and pointed to a smouldering cigarette stub on
the rocky floor of the passage that had led out of the conspirators'
niche.
"That wasn't dropped many minutes ago," declared the cowboy. "They
came along here."
This was evident, but it was also evident that Del Pinzo and his
conspirators were sufficiently in advance to escape. For, with another
sudden turn, the passage led to another natural, rocky stairway, and
when this had been mounted the boy ranchers found themselves again in
the main tunnel.
"What's this?" cried Bud, when it was evident that they had come back
to the place whence they had started, but farther on, and nearer to the
river end of the tunnel. "This is a regular maze!"
"But where is Del Pinzo?" asked Dick.
"Out there, I fancy," and Nort pointed to where the main tunnel
extended under the mountain and beyond, to the dam in Pocut River.
"They've gotten away!"
"And about time, too!" added Snake, "or they'd be trapped as we may be!"
"Trapped!" cried Old Billee. "What do you mean?"
"I mean there's a mine set here, somewhere! Don't you smell powder
smoke?"
A sharp, acrid odor, once smelled never forgotten, came to the nostrils
of all as they stood there in the tunnel, while the stream flowed
beside them. Whatever the conspirators had done, they had, evidently,
not shut off all the water.
"There it is!" cried Dick, and he pointed to where, in the light of the
lanterns, there could be seen, slowly ascending, a thin wisp of smoke.
"Look out!" yelled Old Billee as Dick dashed forward. "It may explode!"
Then, as Dick rushed up with his lantern, they saw trailing over the
floor of the tunnel, and on the same side of the stream as themselves,
a thin white fuse, like a sinister snake. It was this burning fuse
which caused the smoke.
It was the work of but an instant for Dick to step on it, and
extinguish the smouldering spark, while it yet had some distance to
travel before the fuse lost itself in a mass of rocks.
"Whew! That was a close call!" exclaimed. Bud, when the fuse was
entirely out.
"Let's see where it leads to," suggested Snake.
They followed it up, and discovered a hidden mine of explosives, tamped
down into a hole that had been drilled in the rocky floor. Iron bars,
hammers and other mining implements showed that the perpetrators of the
dastardly deed had evidently fled in a hurry.
"They were going to blow up the tunnel!" cried Nort.
"And when that collapsed it would mean the end of Flume Valley," spoke
Bud soberly.
"We never could have opened the tunnel again, with all these strange,
branching streams playing around inside."
"But we reached here just in time!" declared Old Billee. "Now let's
get t' th' bottom of this. We know there's a main stream, an' two
branching streams. One of th' branching streams is controlled by th'
water gate with th' copper handle."
"And there must be another gate here, or else Del Pinzo and his crowd
couldn't have shut off the water as they did before they ran away,"
went on Bud. "There must be a whole maze of water-courses in this old
tunnel. Probably the Aztecs dug 'em to save their gold and other
valuables. But I'd like to know what that roaring is?" and as Bud and
the others listened they could hear a subdued murmur, a rumbling and
roaring sound, that seemed to shake the whole tunnel near where they
stood.
"Maybe this leads to it," suggested Dick, as he walked along and
suddenly flashed his lantern across another opening--a natural stairway
leading down into black depths.
"Let's try it," said Bud.
Down it they went, one at a time, carrying their lanterns. And as they
advanced, descending until they came to a level passage, the murmur and
roaring became louder.
"Would you look at that!" suddenly cried. Bud, in an awe-stricken
voice, as he came to a stop and pointed ahead.
And then, as the others gathered about him and looked, they saw a
wondrous sight.
They had entered a cavern, similar to the one where Nort had been
found, but not so large. And from the very centre, it appeared, of the
uneven rocky floor of the cave there spouted out a stream of water
about three inches in diameter.
Solid white was this stream of water, like a bar of glass, and it shot
out of a round hole in the floor as a stream comes from the nozzle of a
fire hose. It was inclined at an angle of about forty-five degrees,
was this strange stream of water, and whence it came and whither it
went to the boys and their friends could only guess.
It was this powerful, rushing stream, under immense head and power it
seemed, that caused the rumbling, roaring sound. It appeared to strike
against some rocky wall a long distance off, so far that the light of
the lanterns could not penetrate to it, and the searchers did not feel
like venturing beyond the point where the terrific stream issued.
That it was of awful power was evidenced a moment later, for Bud, who
had picked up one of the bars of iron, used by the conspirators to set
their sinister mine, approached the stream and, raising the bar,
brought it down with all his force on the white, spurting jet.
On an instant the heavy rod was torn from his grasp, and whirled
forward into the blackness beyond. There was a ringing, metallic sound
as it hit some distant rock, and then it came bounding back, sliding
across the rocky floor to the very feet of the searchers.
"Look at that!" murmured Bud, as he stooped and picked up the bar. It
was bent and twisted into a sort of combined S and U shape, mute
evidence of the terrific power of the stream.
"That would bore right through a man!" said Dick.
"Like making a hole in cheese!" added Old Billee. "This is a terrible
place! Let's get out!"