Chapter XXII: An Endless Cavern Chain

"I see what you mean, Lanky, and hear the growling to boot!" exclaimed Frank Allen.

"Some sort of wild creature makes its den in these caves!" ejaculated Lanky. "Maybe it's a wolf, or else a big cat! It might even be a mountain lion."

"We can't do anything but make a stab at guessing," Frank told him. "One thing is certain--we've either got to turn tail and quit, or else----"

"Plug it!" snapped Lanky decidedly. "Here, Frank, hold my light so I can kneel down and sight between those twin yellow spots."

"It's a risky thing to do, Lanky. But, for one, I don't want to go back like a whipped cur, just because of a lone cat! Wait a minute! I've got an idea that may pay."

He took the burning torch and started to fix one end in a crevice about six feet up from the rocky floor.

"Bully for you, Frank! I get you," cried Lanky, grasping the idea in a flash. "Two guns ought to make surer work of the spitter than one. Now, count three when you've got your aim, and we'll fire together."

At the word both reports rang out with a deafening concussion echoing and re-echoing along the passage. There was no attack, but the boys, as they pumped another cartridge into each gun chamber, could detect a strange shuffling noise. Then all became deathly still again.

"Huh! got him that time, all right!" said Lanky triumphantly.

While he took the torch and started forward, cautious Frank held his gun in readiness for immediate work. But there was no need of another shot, for they found a wolf of unusual size lying where it had fallen.

"I'm sorry we had to do it," remarked Frank, "because it's a mother wolf, and like as not she's got a litter of whelps somewhere around here. If so be we happen to run across the bunch we'll have to knock them on the head, because they'll starve to death with the mother gone."

As the boys ran across no sign of the wolf's den, however, it was concluded she must have had it in one of the numerous squatty side passages they had encountered every little while. These they could not have searched even had they wished, as they were too low to admit of their crawling through, though a wolf might be easily able to do so.

Twice they fancied they had been in certain caverns before, because of familiar signs. So to avoid repetitions, they took to marking their passage and seeking fresh avenues for making progress.

Hours passed in this way.

Their stock of torch-wood was commencing to lower, and Frank began to wonder if they would not display wisdom by discontinuing the exploration of those bewildering caverns until the others of the party could join in the work.

But there was so much fascination connected with the possibility of running upon what they sought at any moment, that he allowed himself to consent to Lanky's eager plea to "go on just a little further." Lanky, on his part, felt absolutely certain that they must be close to that mysterious five-fingered cave so plainly marked on the chart and would stumble on it soon.

"We've got to eat sparingly of this cooked meat," advised Frank, as they sat on a broken stalactite that had fallen from the roof and partook of a "snack," their stomachs having been calling for food for some time.

"Say," breezed Lanky, his mouth full of cold venison, "that sounds as if you might expect to be marooned down here in all these twists and turns and big vaulted halls for a whole week!"

"You never can tell," was the rather noncommittal answer he received. "Better to make it last two whole days, even if we have to keep on short rations, than to gobble the last scrap and then go hungry."

"Oh, rats, Frank! Something seems to tell me we've reached the end of our hard luck and are nearly ready to fall in with our own at last. Anyway, let's find one more big cave, if not more; and after that when you say the word we'll throw up the sponge. But only for a time! I'm bound to light on that five-fingered cave, if I keep searching all the rest of the summer."

So they went along for another stretch of time. Finally Frank came to a sudden halt.

"Anything doing?" snapped his mate, bringing his gun up and peering earnestly into the half gloom lying beyond.

"Only that I'm about all in, and we both need rest after all we've gone through lately," Frank told him decisively.

"Just as you say, Frank," Lanky agreed. To tell the truth his own knees were shaky from so much crawling and bending down, in negotiating many of the low and sinuous passages.

"We're coming to another cave, I imagine from the way things run, Lanky, and no matter what it looks like, we'll manage to get some rest. While we sleep we'll be saving our stock of torches. After we've got back our strength will be time enough to think of finding some sort of outlet to this queer old rambling underground place that makes me think of what I've read about those catacombs under the city of Rome."

"Sounds as though you didn't want to go back over our course and make use of that same crevice for an exit, Frank."

"As the cook says," Frank told him, with a little laugh, "when giving directions for stewing a rabbit: 'First get your rabbit!' That's the prime thing. With us it would mean find the crevice once more."

Lanky whistled on hearing Frank say that.

"I opine from the way you talk," he observed, "that you don't bank much on our chances for doing that!"

"Well, to begin with, Lanky, we've used two-thirds of our stock of fire-sticks up coming here, and long before we could make that crevice again we'd be groping in pitch darkness, also in danger of falling down one of the precipices we've been avoiding."

"Wow! that's tough luck I'd say, Frank! I've been so bent on finding that five-fingered cave I've let everything else slip out of my mind."

"And more than that," continued the other prospector, "I feel pretty certain we couldn't locate that crevice in a week of hunting!"

"Lost! Lost, like the babes in the wood!" groaned Lanky, in pretended dismay but some real anxiety.

"Well," Frank informed his chum, "here's our cave, just as I reckoned would be the case; so after a little look around we'll pick out the softest rock we can find and say good-bye to all our troubles for a time."

"I'm all to the good on the proposition," stated Lanky. "Some cave, believe me! With a low ceiling, too. No stalactites growing downward here, you notice."

"No. But clap your eyes on all those big bats hanging head downward from rough places in the roof. Must be hundreds, almost thousands of the ugly, winged, ratlike creatures. There, some are starting to whirl around now, seeing our light."

More and more of the bats swung in circles, both big and small. Lanky struck at them with what remained of his bunch of torches, and several times let out a screech of triumph when he made a good hit.

By degrees the bats vacated their sleeping chamber, and when quiet had been restored the boys looked for a promising place to lie down and sleep.

"We can take a closer survey after we wake up," suggested Frank, with a reason he did not care to explain just then. But as Lanky was dead for sleep and tired, he failed to ask questions, as was his custom.

They were not disturbed. If any of those fierce-looking winged denizens returned to their roost, neither of the boys knew of the fact, so deep was their slumber for some hours.

Frank felt confident that there was some opening not far away from this cave, because those hosts of bats could never have come from such a long distance as that crevice.

When Lanky opened his eyes he saw that Frank had lighted a torch and was coming toward him, bearing one in his hand.

"What time do you think it can be, Frank?" was his first question, and a very natural one too, since Frank carried a small wrist watch.

"About sunrise, I'd judge," Lanky was told. He noticed Frank looked unusually smiling, upon which he pointed a finger at him, and demanded:

"Here, what's all that grinning about? You've got something up your sleeve, Frank Allen, which you're meaning to tell me right off the handle. Go to it, now."

"For one thing," said the other impressively, "I noticed something before we lay down to sleep; but didn't mention it, because we were both tuckered out and needed rest most of all. Scramble up off your downy couch and come along with me."

Lanky trotted at his heels, all on edge, as he told himself.

"Is it another exit to this bunch of caves?" he asked.

"No," came the answer. "But I'm dead certain there must be one not a great way off. Those bats in here told me as much. Then, here's the other convincing reason. Look down, and not up, Lanky."

"Wow! A heap of ashes, eh? Shows that we're not the only chaps who've been wandering around for hours and hours in these passages."

"Notice what a lot of wood ashes there are," pursued Frank. "That would mean a fire has been burned many times. Long ago, too, I figure, though never a gust of wind disturbs the heap back here."

Lanky grew more deeply absorbed in the way Frank was putting things.

"See here!" he blurted out, "open up an tell a fellow just what you're hinting at, Frank. Do you think it may have been old Josh Kinney who used to camp out here from time to time? If that's so, as he must have toted all his wood from the outside, you're right about there being another entrance to the caves not a great way off which we can find if we hunt systematically."

"I've been poking around a bit this morning while you snoozed," continued Frank.

"Yes, and what've you discovered to make you look so pleased?"

"I suspected it when I saw these ashes, and now I know it's a dead open-and-shut thing."

"Whoopee! Do you mean--" blazed out the overjoyed Lanky.

"Just what I do!" broke in Frank. "Right now we're in that five-fingered cave we saw marked on the map!"