IN THE MESA DWELLERS' BURIAL GROUND.
Down, down, they plunged, bumping and scraping painfully in the
darkness. Terror had deprived them of speech or the power of uttering
a sound, or they would have shouted. As it was, however, when they
finally landed in a heap on some hard surface at the foot of the steep
declivity down which they had fallen, it was some seconds before any of
them breathed a word. Then it was Jack who spoke.
"Fellows!"
"Yes, Jack." The rejoinder came out of the darkness in Walt Phelps'
voice.
"Ralph, are you there?"
"No; I'm dead. That is, I feel as if every bone in my body had been
broken. What in the name of Old Nick has happened?"
"Thank goodness there are no bones broken," breathed Jack thankfully,
as Ralph spoke, "as to what happened, you can take your own guess on
it. My idea is that there was some sort of hinged trap-door at the
bottom of that altar, and that when our combined weight came upon it at
the time I pulled Ralph down, the blamed old thing tipped and dumped us
down in here."
"That's my idea, too," chimed in Walt. "Can't account for it in any
other way. But what is 'here'? Where are we?"
"You can answer that as well as I can," was the rejoinder. "Anybody
got a match? Oh, here; all right, I've got some, plenty in fact--a
whole pocketful."
Jack struck a lucifer, and as its yellow glare lit up their
surroundings, they could not repress a cry of astonishment. They had
landed at the foot of a steep flight of stairs, at the summit of which
they correctly surmised was the trap-door through which they had been
so startlingly dumped.
"Good gracious, did we fall down all those?" murmured Ralph, rubbing
his elbow painfully.
"Guess so. I know I feel as if I'd been monkeying with a buzz-saw,"
same [Transcriber's note: came?] from Walt Phelps.
"Well, fellows," said Jack, as the light died out, "the question now
before us is, what are we going to do?"
"Try to get out again," said the practical Walt Phelps.
"All right, Walt. Then we'd better remount those steps--slower than we
came down them--and try to reopen that trap-door. We can't leave Pete
and the injured professor like this."
The boys clambered up the steps without difficulty. They were deep and
shallow, and were cut out of the living rock. At the head of the
stairs, however, a disappointment awaited them. Try as they would,
they could not discover any means of reopening the stone trap-door in
the floor of the hollow altar. Apparently, after dumping them through,
it had closed as hermetically as before.
The flickering light of the matches from Jack's store illuminated looks
of despair on their faces as they realized that they were trapped.
"Try pounding on it and shouting," suggested Ralph.
Although Jack deemed it of little use, he and Walt followed this
suggestion, and together the three boys beat and hammered on the
massive stone above them till their hands were raw. There was no
response, however. Apparently the stone was too thick for a sound to
penetrate to the outer air. Terror, that was almost panic, seized Walt
and Ralph, as they realized that they were prisoners in this
hermetically sealed dungeon. Worse than prisoners, in fact. Prisoners
had food and at least hope. They, unless they could find a way out,
were buried alive. Even Jack's stout heart experienced a deadly
feeling of depression, as he realized this. He concealed his despair
from his companions, however, and, with all the cheerfulness he could
muster, addressed them in the darkness. Matches had now grown too
precious to squander.
"Well, fellows, we've got to find another way out."
"Oh, it's no good," moaned Ralph despairingly, "we're doomed to die
here. We might as well sit down and wait for death to come."
"Say," cut in Jack briskly, "if it was light enough to see, I'd give
you a good licking. Doomed to die, indeed! Not much. It's a cinch,
isn't it, that if there is an entrance to this place there must be an
outlet, too? Very well, then," he hurried on, without waiting for an
answer, "let's find that outlet."
The logic of this speech might be questioned, but of its good sense,
under the circumstances, there was no doubt.
"You're right, Jack," said Ralph. "I'm ashamed of myself for doing
the baby act. Come on, let's set out at once."
"That's the talk," said Walt heartily; "if there's a way out, we'll
find it."
"And if not?" asked Ralph, his spirits flagging again.
"We'll discuss that later," declared Jack briskly.
Returning again to the landing--if such it might be called--upon which
they had terminated their abrupt descent into the interior of the mesa,
some more of the precious matches were lit. As the last flickered out,
the boys fancied that some feet from them they could see a black mouth,
like the entrance of a tunnel, or rather a continuation of the one into
which they had been thrown.
"Come on, boys," exclaimed Jack. "It's the only thing to do. We can't
turn back, and, as Pete says, 'there ain't nothing to do but go ahead.'"
Not without some misgivings did the three lads plunge forward in the
darkness, feeling their way with outstretched hands as they entered the
tunnel. A close, musty smell, as of things long mildewed and moulded,
filled the air, and an oppressive silence lay on everything.
Unconsciously, since entering this place, their conversation had been
all in whispers.
The tunnel they were now traversing was bored on a pretty steep down
grade. So steep, in fact, that Jack concluded, after about a quarter
of an hour of slow and cautious traveling, that they must be below the
level of the desert. For the last few minutes they had been conscious
of a peculiar thing. This was that the silence of the tunnel had given
place to a deep-throated roaring, not unlike the voice of a blast
furnace. Where it came from, or what it was, they had no idea. It was
a most peculiar sound, though, steady as a trade-wind, and seeming to
fill the whole place with its deep vibrations.
"What can it be?" gasped Walt, as they paused by common consent to
listen.
"Maybe the wind roaring by the entrance to this place," suggested Jack
hopefully.
This thought gave them new courage, and, on Ralph's suggestion, Jack
struck another match from his store. As it flared up, they all three
recoiled with expressions of dismay.
At their very feet--so close that the tips of their boots almost
projected over it--was a deep chasm. The black profundity of it loomed
in front of them gapingly. A few paces more, and they would have been
precipitated into the abyss. Jack, suppressing a shudder, leaned
forward and held the match as far over the edge as he dared. As the
depths of the great crevasse were illuminated by a feeble flame, he
shrank back with a sharp intake of his breath.
[Illustration: As it flared up, they all three recoiled with
expressions of dismay. At their very feet was a deep chasm.]
The place was a charnel house!
No mystery now as to what had become of the human remains of the grisly
sacrifices of the ancient mesa dwellers. There, piled in that dark
chasm beneath them, were great piles of decaying bones and gleaming
skulls. Hundreds of them extended toward the surface in a ghastly
pyramid. No wonder the underground place into which they had
penetrated smelled musty and unpleasant.
"It is the mesa dwellers' burial ground!" exclaimed Ralph in a
quavering voice, as, clinging to Jack's arm, he bent forward.
"Yes," rejoined Walt with a shudder, "and but for Providence, we should
have plunged downward into it ourselves."
"Ugh!" exclaimed Jack, in a voice filled with repulsion. "Don't let's
think of it. See, the path takes a turn here. Come on, let's go
ahead, but follow me closely and keep in to the wall."
"Not likely to take any chances of missing the road, after seeing
that," spoke up Walt, as once more the three youths, who had been so
strangely plunged into this predicament, began to tread the
subterranean regions once more.
As you may imagine, they went with due caution. But no more dangers
menaced them, and as they progressed the path began to widen. All the
time, however, the strange roaring sound had been growing louder, until
now it had attained almost deafening proportions. Still they had come
upon no explanation of what it could be. Jack had privately concluded
it to be the sound of the wind, forcing its way into some crevice.
This theory seemed to be the more tenable as the last match which he
had struck had only been kept alight with difficulty, so strong had
been the draught that now puffed up toward them.
Far from alarming them, however, this gave them renewed hope. It meant
that, in all probability, they were nearing an outlet of the strange
underground place. Had it not been for the predicament in which they
had left the professor and Coyote Pete, the three lads would have felt
a real interest in exploring the cavern, now that they had grown
accustomed to their surroundings. So far as they had been able to make
out, the tunnel they had been treading was partially the work of human
hands and partially the work of Nature. The great rift in which lay
the accumulation of human remains was evidently the result of some
volcanic upheaval. The path, however, was so graded and formed that
there seemed no reason to doubt that it had, at one time, been made by
the ancient mesa dwellers.
"Seems to me we ought to find out what that roaring sound means before
we go any farther," suggested Ralph suddenly.
"That's a fine Irish bull," laughed Jack. "How are we going to find
what it is unless we do go farther?"
"That's so," agreed Ralph, somewhat abashed. "Come on, then."
A few paces more brought them to an abrupt turn in the path, as they
could feel by their constant touching of the inner wall.
"Better strike another match," said Walt.
"Yes; here goes," agreed Jack. Both boys shouted, to make themselves
heard above the now thunderous roaring of the strange noise.
A shout of surprise that rose even above the mysterious roaring,
followed the striking of the match. Beyond the turn the path took a
steep drop downward, and beyond that--the boys could hardly believe
their eyes as they gazed--was the glint of rushing water.
"The subterranean river!" was the amazed cry that broke from the lips
of all three.