A TRAP OF NATURE'S MAKING.
"Dive overboard when I give the word and swim under water!" ordered
Sandy.
"The only thing to do, I guess. Look, they are going to fire again."
"Get ready, then."
Jack merely nodded. But his lips were firmly compressed, and his
face bore a look of determination that spoke far louder than words.
"Are you coming back, or do we have to sink that boat and drown you
two rats?" bellowed Walstein, deliberately steadying his arm on the
stern bulwark of the tug to take better aim.
But before the words were out of his mouth the boat was empty. It
seemed almost as if by magic, so swiftly had both boys dived,
immediately following Sandy's quick-spoken:
"Now!"
A perfect roar of rage arose from the decks of the anchored tug, as
the two splashes sounded and only spreading rings of water marked
where the lads had vanished.
"Fire at the water!" shouted Walstein, almost beside himself with
anger.
As for Dampier, he danced up and down, and shook his fists at the
shore in impotent fury.
"Guess the boys have euchered us this time, Walstein," grinned
Captain Rangler ruefully.
Among all that angry crew the captain alone was cool.
"No use firing at the water," he continued, "it will only be waste of
ammunition. Anyway, those kids must be 'most ashore by this time."
A few seconds later two dripping forms did emerge from the water,
and, wading rapidly up the beach, vanished in the thick undergrowth.
"And we haven't even got a boat to follow them in!" raged Dampier.
"Well, there's the one that they stole floating about. Peterson,"
addressing one of the sailors, "swim over yonder and bring that boat
back."
The man kicked off his boots unconcernedly, and stripped to his
underclothing. He was a strong swimmer, and speedily returned with
the small craft.
"Now, then, get aboard," ordered Captain Rangler. "The sooner we
take after them the less chance those brats will have to travel any
distance."
"Yes; but supposing they discover the--the--you know--the old tower?"
questioned Dampier uneasily.
"Pshaw!" scoffed Walstein, "no danger of that. It's too well hidden.
Besides, the light hasn't been used, except for our purposes, for
years. The path is all overgrown, and nobody who didn't know the way
could reach it."
"Just the same, it would be awkward if they did, and were ever able
to inform the authorities," spoke up one of the crew.
"That's so. But in that case they would never get away. Eh,
Rangler?"
It was Dampier who spoke, his thin, ferret-like features contorted in
an evil smile.
"I'm sure I don't know," rejoined Captain Rangler, as if the subject
was distasteful to him, "but there's another reason. You know what
that is."
"Of course. But Barkentin is guarding him. Come on, let's waste no
more time talking here, but get ashore."
Five minutes later, as many as could crowd into the boat were being
pulled toward the little beach where the boys had landed. In the
stern sheets sat Walstein, Dampier and Captain Rangler, the most
bitter enemies the two young fugitives had on earth.
* * * * * * *
The ground above the beach sloped quite steeply. It was rocky and
thickly grown with brush and low shrubs, and here and there large
trees mingled with the undergrowth.
Stumbling and running by turns, the two young fugitives made their
way over the uneven ground with some difficulty. But the thought of
what lay behind kept them moving as briskly as possible. At last the
character of the ground seemed to change. They emerged on a sort of
rocky plateau.
At one side of this was a cliff, and at the base of the acclivity
appeared a large hole, apparently the mouth of a cave.
"We may as well take a look in there," spoke Jack; "in case of
pursuit it might make a good hiding place."
Sandy agreed that the cave was worth investigating. But before the
two lads plunged into the dark entrance of the place they armed
themselves with heavy sticks. Later they were glad they had taken
this precaution.
The mouth of the cave was black and a curious damp smell issued from
it. But the boys did not hesitate. With Jack in advance, they
plunged into the tunnel-like entrance. The floor of the cavern
sloped steeply downward and was dry and sandy. It was pitchy dark
inside, but, luckily, Sandy had a small electric pocket lamp with
him, which he flashed about. It showed the boys that they were
making their way through a sort of semi-circular tube in the cliff.
Just how far it extended they were, of course, unaware; but they
decided to keep pushing on until they came to the end of it.
All at once the rocky passage terminated abruptly in a medium sized
chamber with a high roof. The air in here was cool and pleasant, and
the boys sat down to rest on a rock while they looked about them in
the rays of the pocket lamp.
"This is a queer sort of place to stumble on," mused Jack; "wonder if
anyone ever explored it before."
"I dinna ken," rejoined Sandy, "but, mon, I can spy another openin'
yonder. Suppose that when we are rested we see what is beyant."
"Very well," agreed Jack readily. "As far as that goes, I'm ready to
start right now."
Sandy declared that he was rested too, and the lads crossed the rocky
chamber and plunged into another passage on the other side. It was
similar in character to the tunnel through which they had entered the
big cavern, except that its downward slope was pitched still more
steeply.
"I wonder where on earth this is going to lead us?" ruminated Jack as
they trudged along.
"We must ha' come more than half a mile noo," grunted out Sandy.
"Tired?" asked Jack.
"A little."
"Well, we might as well turn back then. I don't think it's much use
our keeping on any further."
"Nor do I. Besides, we might get lost, and it's fearsome dark in
case that light gives oot, and I dinna think the batteries are verra
strong."
This suggested an alarming possibility to Jack. He knew that Sandy
had used the torch a good deal and, as the Scotch lad had pointed
out, there was a chance that the light might not hold out. In such a
case their predicament would be a serious one, indeed.
The lads turned and retraced their steps and, in the course of a few
minutes, found themselves back in the vaulted chamber. Here they sat
down to rest once more. While they rested the light was
extinguished, but, as it was lonely sitting there in the dark, Sandy
felt moved to relate a story of an adventure met with by a friend of
his father's in a mine in the west.
This man was an engineer who had been called upon to do some
inspection work on a large mine which extended several hundred feet
under the ground.
"Being doon here in the dark sets me in mind of it," added the lad.
"Shall I tell ye aboot it?"
"Yes, do," rejoined Jack. "It will help to pass the time while we
are resting up."
Without further preliminaries Sandy plunged into his story, which we
shall not relate in his dialect, but set forth in plain English.
The hero of Sandy's tale was a young engineer named MacPherson. On
the day on which he met with his adventure he had completed a tour of
inspection of the lower levels of the works and was invited by one of
the employees to take a look at a vein which was located in a far
part of the mine.
Accompanied by this employee, MacPherson set off to the remote
excavation in which the vein was located. All the time they were
below the ore trucks, operated by a cable from above, were ascending
and descending at a rapid rate. On returning from his investigation
of the vein the engineer and his friend stopped for a time to watch
the trucks as they rushed up and down.
All at once MacPherson noticed that a truck of a different type to
the others was coming toward them. It was painted a bright red. He
inquired what it was, and was informed that it was the dynamite car
which took a supply of the explosive to another part of the mine
where the men were opening up a new lead.
"Pretty awkward if it should happen to bump us," remarked MacPherson
with a grin.
His companion answered with a shrug.
"We'd never know what struck us," he said. "There's enough dynamite
in that car to blow up half the mountain if it ever jumped the track."
The words were hardly out of his mouth before a miner came running
through the tunnel toward them.
"A truck has been wrecked round the curve, just below the shaft," he
cried. "I'm going to telephone to the surface and tell 'em to stop
that dynamite car. If it----"
He stopped abruptly and his jaw fell. At that instant the red car
flashed past with a rumble and roar, and shot round the curve at high
speed.
"Down on your faces!" shouted the miner excitedly; and down on their
faces they all three flung themselves without loss of time. Hardly
had they done so before there was a roar that seemed to shake the
earth to its foundations. The lights on the wall of the tunnel went
out, and the three men were raised from the ground and slammed down
again with sufficient violence to knock the breath out of them.
MacPherson was the first to recover himself. But the other two
regained their faculties speedily and, sitting up, strove to collect
their scattered senses. They were in pitch darkness, and only
MacPherson had any matches in his pockets. These were struck
sparingly as they groped their way along the tunnel. But before they
had gone more than a few yards they were brought up "all standing" by
a mass of rock. It had been dislodged by the explosion, and lay in
great masses, completely blocking the tunnel and, as they realized,
with thrills of horror, imprisoning them.
Luckily they were all men of nerve, and, instead of losing their
senses, began to calculate ways and means of escape. But their
deliberations brought them to no satisfactory conclusion.
Before them lay a wall whose thickness they had no means of knowing.
Behind them the tunnel terminated at the vein already mentioned.
They were prisoners, hundreds of feet under the earth, and how were
they to know if they would ever be rescued, or even if any attempt
would be made to do so.
As they realized this, despair overtook all three of them for a time.
For a long period they sat, gloomily, in the darkness, without
speaking. Then, all at once, reaching out his hand, MacPherson
touched an iron pipe. He informed the others of his discovery and
the miner declared that the metal tube led to the surface and was
used to convey water to the depths of the mine. This suggested an
idea to MacPherson. He picked up a bit of rock and began tapping at
the pipe. He had some knowledge of telegraphy, and the taps he gave
spelled out the message:
"Three of us are imprisoned. Send help."
After a time he succeeded in teaching the message to the others, and
they took turns in tapping it out. But no reply came, and in despair
they gave up their efforts for a time.
But MacPherson was not prepared to lose hope as easily as the others.
He persisted in his tapping, hour after hour, till the rock he was
tapping with cut his hands and they were bruised and sore. He was
just about to give over his efforts to attract attention when there
came a sudden sound that made his pulses jump.
Somebody was tapping an answer from above. MacPherson listened and
made out the message.
"Where are you?"
"What do you call this tunnel?" he asked of the miner.
"Tunnel No. 4 of the Old Mine," was the reply in a listless tone.
"Why?"
"Why? Because I've just got an answer to my message. There is a
chance we may be saved."
The reply electrified the despairing men into new hope. They
listened eagerly while MacPherson tapped out a return message.
"We are in Tunnel No. 4 of the Old Mine," he rapped out.
Then they waited for the answer. It seemed an age before it came to
the entombed men.
"Will try to get help to you. But the explosion has blocked the
shaft."
With this they had to be content, but the man above continued, from
time to time, to send down bulletins of what was being done. In this
way he announced the work of the relief parties, and described the
damage done by the explosion. Three men had been killed, he said,
but the others had managed to escape, although more or less wounded.
When the first wreck occurred they had at once made for the upper
levels, not waiting for the arrival of the dynamite car, which they
knew must be on its way. In this manner they had saved themselves
from death.
After that there seemed nothing more to do but to await, with what
patience they might, the work of rescue. But they knew full well
that if help didn't come before long they were doomed to die of
hunger and thirst, for already they were beginning to feel the pangs
of privation.
Water particularly was what they longed for. It was hot, stiflingly
so, in their living tomb, and there appeared no prospect of speedy
relief. They tried in vain to get at the fluid that they knew was
inside the pipe, but, having no tools, their efforts were useless,
and would not have been attempted by any but desperate men, such as
they were fast becoming.
At first they kept track of the time, but after awhile their store of
matches grew so low that they did not dare light them to examine
their watches. To make matters worse, no answer now came to
MacPherson's tappings, and so they were deprived of the means of
knowing how the work above them was going on.
Hour after hour passed in the darkness, and the nerves of the
imprisoned captives were cruelly racked. But suddenly a sound broke
in on the silence.
It was a queer sort of scraping sound among the great mass of rock
that was blocking the tunnel. Then, to the wonderment of the
imprisoned men, a voice came through the darkness with startling
clearness. To their overwrought imaginations it seemed almost
supernatural for an instant. But the next moment the mysterious
incident was explained.
The rescuing party, working on the other side of the blockade, had
succeeded in forcing a pipe through the rock. Through this they were
now addressing the captives. Before long the pipe served a new use.
Water and food in liquid form were forced through it, the imprisoned
men taking turns at getting their nourishment in this odd fashion.
For three days they were compelled to live in this manner, while
their comrades worked desperately to pierce the barrier. At last it
was accomplished, and rescued and rescuers met face to face. Amid
cheers the survivors of the accident were brought to the surface.
It was then that a strange thing was seen. Their hair had turned
white as snow from suspense and suffering, but otherwise, except that
they looked thin and haggard, they showed no permanent effects of
their terrible experience.
"And when I find mesel' in a tight place," concluded Sandy, "I think
to mesel' of MacPherson and his comrades in yon black hole."
Jack agreed that the experience of the engineer and his companions
was indeed an example of something turning up when everything seemed
at its blackest, but he could not help but think that their own
situation was almost as bad.
A short time after, they rose to their feet and struck out for the
passage by which they had entered the big cavern. As Sandy switched
on the light, however, they both became aware of something that made
them jump back in a hurry.
A big black snake was coiled on the floor of the cave, almost at
their feet. Another step, in fact, and they would have trodden on
the reptile. As they jumped backward, with the agility of acrobats,
the snake hissed angrily and, opening its mouth, showed a forked,
darting tongue and ugly-looking fangs.
Sandy aimed a blow at the creature with his stick, but, instead of
recoiling, the reptile made as if to strike at the lad. Just then,
as the Scotch lad's misfortune would have it, he tripped on a rock
and fell forward.
He uttered an involuntary yell as he did so. He could almost feel,
in imagination, the fangs of the black snake fastening into his
flesh. Naturally, too, in his extremity, he dropped his pocket
light, which went out immediately, being one of the variety that are
worked by keeping a finger pressed on a spring.
Plunged once more in Egyptian darkness, with his companion, for all
he knew, involved in a battle with the serpent, Jack caught his
breath. Then he struck a match. The sputter of flame showed him
Sandy sprawled out at full length on the ground, while the snake had
its head drawn back and its body coiled as if to strike.
At that instant the match flickered and went out. But Jack had
marked where the snake lay, and, in a desperate effort to save Sandy
at all hazards, he struck out blindly in the darkness. He felt his
stick strike something soft and wriggly. The feeling sent a shudder
of repulsion through the boy, but he bravely kept on striking out
nevertheless. In the meantime Sandy had recovered himself, and,
feeling about for it, found the pocket light. He switched it hastily
on and saw Jack battling with the black snake, which was hissing and
striking viciously in every direction.
It was Sandy's turn to take part in the battle now. With a
well-directed blow he brought his stick down full on the serpent's
back. Instantly the creature seemed to tie itself up in an intricate
knot, writhing and lashing in what proved its death agony, for a few
seconds later it lay in a limp, inanimate heap at the lad's feet.
"Well done, Sandy," cried Jack, examining the dead reptile. "It's
dead as a doornail."
"I wonder if it was a poisonous one?" pondered Sandy.
"I don't know. It looks deadly enough, and I'd hate to have been
bitten by it," rejoined Jack, "but come on. Don't let's waste time
here. We must push on in a hurry if we want to get out again before
that lamp gives out."
"Yes, it's getting a wee bit feeble," agreed Sandy. "Hoots, mon, I
hope it dinna give oot. If it does before we reach the open air we
shall be----"
The sentence was not completed. At that instant the dreaded thing
happened. Without any warning the wires in the tiny lamp began to
glow red and then suddenly ceased to shine. The boys were plunged in
total darkness, and, worse still, Jack's supply of matches was
exhausted.
"What on earth shall we do?" he breathed, with something of a quiver
in his voice.
In rejoinder Sandy felt for his comrade's hand and clasped it.
"Dinna lose heart, laddie," he said. "Remember the story o'
MacPherson and keep up your courage."
Thus admonished, Jack steadied up his nerves, and the two lads began
to grope through the darkness.
"We can find the wall of the cave and then feel round it till we
discover the opening," said jack in a firmer voice than when he had
last spoken.
"Hurray! Here it is!" exclaimed Sandy after they had groped about
for several minutes.
"Then, forward march!" cried Jack, "and let's get out of this place
as quick as we can. I wish we had never come into it."
"So do I," agreed Sandy, "but it's crying when the milk is spilt."
Through the darkness the two boys advanced into the tunnel whose
entrance they had discovered. They tramped briskly on for some time
and at last a feeble glimmer of light began to show. This heartened
them, and they quickened their steps. At last they reached the mouth
of the tunnel they had been traversing.
But at its end a cruel shock awaited them.
Instead of the rocky plateau they had expected to find, they
discovered that they had emerged on the lip of a cliff. Peering over
the edge, they could see that they were standing on a sort of shelf,
a good hundred feet above the bottom of a steep-sided ravine.
The opposite side of the abyss was not more than twenty feet distant,
but how were they to cross it?
"We must turn back," said Jack in a voice tinged with despair.
But Sandy shook his head.
"We could ne'er find the right passage again," he said. "There must
be several of them branching oot of that cavern. Mon, it's tough
luck that we took the wrong ane, but we must aye try to find a way
oot of our deefeculties."
"It's too wide to jump it," said Jack despairingly, "and unless we do
that I don't see how we can get across."
"Nor do I--yet," said Sandy, looking about him with sharp, intent
eyes.
But all at once he gave a joyous cry.
"We could get across if we had a bit bridge," he said.
"Why don't you wish for an airship while you are at it?" retorted
Jack. "It would be just as easy to get one as to find a bridge."
"I'm nae so sure aboot that noo," said Sandy, with a grin. "See yon
dead tree on the hillside above?"
Jack looked up and saw that, just above the tunnel mouth, the ground
sloped steeply upward, and that rooted in the loose soil was the dead
trunk of a lightning-blasted pine.
"If we could get that doon," said Sandy, "and make it fall so as it
reached across yon hole in the ground, we'd have a bridge."
"Cracky! So we would. But how are we to get it down? We've no axe,
and it would take a week to cut it down with our knives."
Sandy thought deeply for a while. Then he spoke.
"That wood is dead and dry. If we could get a bit fire at the roots,
doon she'd coom in a jiffy."
"But we've no matches."
"Can ye no think of any other way to make fire?"
Jack shook his head.
"In books people always rub dry sticks together, but I've tried that
often, and I could never get even a spark from them."
Sandy drew a small brass object from his pocket. Jack saw at once
that it was one of the Scotch lad's most treasured possessions--a
pocket microscope. Many a bug, beetle and butterfly had yielded up
their lives on its account.
"There's a good hot sun aboot us," quoth Sandy; "noo I wonder if we
canna make a good burning glass oot of this wee microscope?"
"By ginger! That's a plan worth trying!" cried Jack enthusiastically.
He began climbing the hillside to where the dead pine grew. With
their knives the two boys soon had shaved off enough dried bark to
start their experiment. Dead limbs in plenty lay all about.
The bark was piled up in a heap after having been shredded. Then
Sandy held his microscope up between the sun and the pile of dried
tinder. After a little he managed to concentrate a red hot ray on
the tinder. It began to smoke, and an aromatic scent filled the air.
The boys could not restrain their enthusiasm. Jack lay flat and blew
on the smoldering bits of bark till they burst into flame. In a few
minutes a roaring fire was heaped about the base of the old dead pine.
A long, thick limb, broken off in some winter storm, lay not far off.
The boys secured this, and when they thought the fire had burned long
enough to char the base of the tree thoroughly, they began using it
as a battering ram.
"Now then," cried Sandy, "ane! twa! all together!"
Crash! The improvised ram collided with the old pine's partially
rotted trunk.
"Glory! It's shaking!" yelled Jack. "A few more good whacks like
that and down she comes."
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! went the battering ram. The old pine
began to lean over majestically. Slowly, very slowly, its collapse
progressed. All at once its weight tore it apart from its base, and
it fell with a loud, resounding crash. The boys caught their breath.
Would its outer end touch the other side of the chasm?
The next instant a jubilant cheer announced that it had fulfilled the
hoped for purpose. Jack threw his cap in the air. Sandy did the
same.
"It's a regular Brooklyn bridge the noo!" he exclaimed.
Half scrambling and half sliding, the boys lost no time in descending
to their improvised bridge. It required some exercise of courage to
straddle the not over steady trunk, and work their way across it to
the other side, but it was done at last, and they stood once more on
"safe ground."
"Now, then, what will we do?" demanded Jack.
"Strike out through yon woods. It can't be long before we get to
some house or other," declared Sandy stoutly.
With a last glance at the "bridge" that had served them so well in
what had seemed an insurmountable difficulty, the boys pushed
forward, making their way through country very much like that they
had traversed before they came to the cave and an adventure which had
come near costing them dearly.
"Say, this brush is as thick as a fog on Long Island Sound,"
vociferated Jack, as the two lads pushed perspiringly forward through
dense undergrowth, interspersed by huge tree trunks whose tops
towered high above.
"But we've got to keep on going," remonstrated Sandy, "reminds me of
that yarn of the chap who said he'd an ancestor who fought in the
revolutionary war on the British side. They asked him what his
ancestor did, and the chap said that he had a drum and kept on
beating it."
"Hum! that's what we've got to do, 'keep on beating it,'" was Jack's
comment on the perennially cheerful Sandy's anecdote.
On and on they pushed, from time to time encountering small
clearings, and then again plunging into thick woods. The sun grew
higher and it grew hotter, but neither of the lads gave a sign of the
fatigue that he felt. But their clothes were dripping wet, as well
as torn by the rough going they encountered.
At last Jack sat down on a big log on the edge of a particularly
dense bit of woodland.
"Tuckered out, mon?" inquired Sandy.
"No, far from it. I could keep on for quite a while, but--but--say,
Sandy, I wonder where on earth we are, anyway. Is this an island, or
the mainland, or the United States or Canada, or what?"
"Blessed if I know," was the frank response, "our only plan is to
keep plugging along till we find out. If it's an island it must be a
big one, or we would have come to the other side of it by this time."
"That's so," assented Jack, "unless we've been traveling round and
round in circles."
"Pshaw! only babies and folks in books do that. I've kept my eyes on
the sun and I'm pretty sure we've been keeping in one direction right
along."
"That being the case, I move that we continue to do so."
"Very well. Lay on, MacDuff, arise and gird thy loins, and----"
Sandy, as he spoke, had given a step or two forward into some
marshy-looking land that came almost up to the stump on which they
had been resting.
All at once, before Jack's very eyes, the Scotch lad gave an amazed,
choking exclamation, and without warning, was suddenly immersed to
his waist in the center of a patch of unnaturally brilliant green
grass.
"Help, Jack! Help!" he cried in a voice in which real terror
vibrated.
"What is it? What's the matter?" queried Jack, anxiously springing
forward. This was a new disaster, and a very real one.
"It's--it's a quicksand or something!" gasped Sandy, "it's pulling me
down! Help! I----"
As he spoke he struggled desperately in the grip of the quagmire that
had fastened a remorseless hold on his nether limbs. But every
struggle took him lower. The slimy, treacherous black mud reached
his waist, then it gradually engulfed him till it was up to his chest.
Jack desperately hacked at a young tree with his big pocketknife. If
he could reach Sandy with it in time, he felt that he could save his
companion yet.
"Keep up your courage, Sandy," he kept on saying, in a voice that
would quaver a bit in spite of itself, "I'll get you out of it, never
fear."
"You'll have to hurry then, Jack," rejoined the other lad in an
astonishingly calm voice, "this stuff is drawing me down as if it had
hands."
At last the sapling was cut, and Jack hastened to the edge of the
swamp to extend it toward his half-immersed companion. Under his
directions Sandy clutched it with the grip of a drowning man.
"Now, then," cried Jack, exerting every ounce of his strength. He
tugged with might and main, but Sandy still stuck fast. It occurred
to Jack that, by getting closer to the boy he was trying to help, he
might be of more assistance. Cautiously he ventured forward and then
tried another tug.
In order to make this final effort more successful he had braced his
feet against a stick of solid-looking timber that lay in the morass.
But it proved "a rotten reed." As his weight came against it the
soft wood appeared literally to "melt away."
Jack felt his feet slide from under him, and then--horrifying
sensation--something seemed to grip them. He struggled in vain. A
fly on a sheet of sticky flypaper might have tried to free itself as
effectually.
The morass gave a queer, sucking sound, and great bubbles of marsh
gas rose to the surface and broke as Jack floundered about. But
every struggle served only to tighten his slimy bonds.
The quagmire had our two young fugitives fast in its treacherous
embrace.
"Help!" shouted Jack.
"Help! Help!" echoed Sandy in a weak, despairing voice.
No answer came back, except the scream of a great blue heron which,
alarmed by their cries, arose and flapped lazily out of the slough.