Chapter XXIII: Kept Under Cover

"That's bully news you're giving me, Frank!" exclaimed Lanky Wallace, as he impulsively gripped the hand of his loyal chum and squeezed it. "Let's get busy and try to locate Kinney's treasure chest."

"After we've had a bite to eat," Frank told him. "Long ago I made it my habit never, when I could help it, to start a day's work on an empty stomach."

They made quite a dent in their slender stock of meat, but both were now quite confident that it was only a matter of a few hours before they would be once more under the blue sky.

Frank and Lanky consulted that second little chart, and also conferred together. Then they started to search in the most likely locality.

Hours crept past and still the object of all this peering around and testing out all likely nooks in the five-fingered cave seemed to be as far from being discovered as in the beginning of the search.

Their stock of torches was growing gradually less and less, so that it began to look rather serious. To be left in utter darkness, without knowing which way to turn in order to gain the outer air, also with hunger commencing to make them uncomfortable! It was not a pleasant outlook, Lanky admitted.

Then, just when both boys were of a mind to give up further hunting for the secret hiding place of Kinney's hoard of nuggets, they ran across something that filled them with sudden hope.

Lanky managed to stumble over an unseen spur of rock jutting out from the wall low down, and when he threw out his hand to save himself from falling he thrust it into what seemed to be a narrow crevice that neither of them had before noticed.

That hand chanced to be clutching the torch, and almost mechanically Lanky leaned forward to thrust the blaze inside the crack. He immediately gave vent to a shout that echoed through the cave and set a dozen startled bats to swooping in circles overhead.

"Frank, what d'you think! We've hit it plum center!" he yelled. "Just peep in there and tell me what you see!"

"As sure as you live, Lanky, I do believe you stumbled on purpose and knew it was here all the while! Reach in, and see whether we're dreaming or not!"

Lanky hastened to follow the suggestion.

"That's the stuff, I tell you, Frank!" he screamed, holding some object up in his hand. "A real gold nugget and weighing as much as three ounces, at that; with plenty more snuggled down in there. Talk to me about luck! Why, the Wallaces have got them all whipped, hands down!"

"All right, then," said Frank seriously. "We know now where the cache is. Our business is to get out of this place, find the rest of the party, come with those strong gunny-sacks, and carry off the whole of Kinney's hoard."

"Gee whiz!" commented Lanky, "the old man must have been digging those nuggets right along, carrying a few away with him, and chucking the rest in his stone bank here. Shall I take this one with me, Frank?"

"Yes, we ought to have some evidence to show we're not bluffing when we reel off the story of our adventures. Each of us might put a few in our pockets. But go slow, and don't load yourself down, Lanky, became you might start another landslide, you know."

They were actually on their last sliver of torch-wood when they turned their backs on the queer five-fingered cave and plunged into a narrow passage. Frank, after a close examination, decided this must be the one the old prospector had used during his periodical visits to his secret claim.

Before they had gone far they found to their dismay that the light was failing. Lanky began to worry, but Frank cheered him up.

"I'm certain I can feel fresh air on my cheeks," he announced. "That of course, would indicate we're close on that exit right now. I've still got a little stock of matches in my safe, and we'll make them last as long as we can."

"Who's afraid?" Lanky broke out, with fresh animation. "After such luck in absolutely falling on to that cache of nuggets, we're not going to let little things knock us out. You're right, though, about that fresh air, Frank, because I can sniff the same every breath I draw."

The torch flickered, and went out.

"Look ahead, Lanky. What do you see?" called out Frank.

"Streaks of daylight, looks like to me."

So it proved to be, and a few minutes later the two boys emerged from the cave to find the sun shining brightly, with nothing in sight to diminish their overwhelming joy.

"We must mark this spot so we can find it again without any trouble," Frank suggested.

"Sure thing," agreed his chum. "And it'd be wise for us to sort of blaze our way to camp."

This they proceeded to do as they made their way along the side of the mountain. It was so rough, after that frightful jumble following the landslides, that they made but tedious progress.

"Never get the ponies in here," Lanky grumbled at one time. "So, like as not, we'll just have to tote all that stuff out on our backs. Whee! it's a bit heavy, even three small nuggets of the same."

"But you'd never have been happy if you hadn't found the cache, remember," Frank told him, at which Lanky grinned.

"That was all bluff, Frank, and you know it," he laughed. "Why, I'm fairly quivering with happiness, and feel like shouting for all that's out, to blow off steam. But when I think of that Nash Yesson and his gang, I shut down on all idea of making a racket."

It took them all of that morning to get close to the plateau where, as they well knew, Gold Fork was located, the former mining camp, taking its name from the clear little stream that ran down the side of the mountain another direction from the great canyon.

Great was the excitement in the camp when the two long overdue boys came in sight. Mr. Wallace and the men had sought for them all morning long, and were preparing to search in another direction when shouts told them the wanderers had been able to get back "under their own steam," to quote Lanky.

Then the story was told and the precious nuggets passed from hand to hand, to prove it was an actual fact. Plans were immediately made to proceed to the cave in the morning in order to bring away the treasure. Mr. Wallace figured that they could transport it on their backs to the corral where their ponies were quartered, and then the journey back to Rockspur Ranch would be next in order.

Every one was to be in the party, even Paul, whose ankle, though still a bit painful, was not sore enough to keep him from feasting his eyes on that strange five-fingered cave, also the gold nuggets lying in the hiding place shrewd old Josh Kinney had chosen many years back as his treasure cache.

Thanks to the slashes Lanky had made on occasional dwarf oaks, they had no trouble whatever in attaining their goal. A large assortment of good torches had been prepared on the previous afternoon, consequently they lost no time in plunging into the passage so cleverly concealed behind a screen of thick vines hanging down the face of a small cliff.

When the last nugget had been drawn out from its depository and the entire collection fastened securely in some six stout gunny-sacks, the mouths of which were tied with strands of rope, they decided to lose no time in starting for the camp.

That was where they miscalculated, for something happened to interfere with their plans.

Zander Forbes, being in the lead, had just stepped out from behind the vines and turned an outlying rock when the smash of a gun was heard and he came backing into the hole again.

"Those sneaks have spotted us on the way here, and are lying in wait to do us up!" he announced.

Every one knew without asking that he meant Nash Yesson, Lef Sellers--if the Columbia shirk still hung on to the gang that had been abusing him so shamefully of late--and the rough boys from the boisterous Double-Z Ranch.

"Shot like they meant business, too," added the indignant and angry Zander, as he ruefully rubbed a red line on his neck that indicated the recent passage of a hot bullet.

"Then it's a case of siege with us," said Mr. Wallace, very much displeased. "We might manage to find that other exit in time, if the boys can remember the course they took. But the chances would be against our transporting such heavy weights as these sacks along. What would you advise, Jerry?"

"Give 'em hot cakes!" was the emphatic retort of the old puncher and prospector. "If I kin spot that Zeke, I'd git him, an' wipe out a ole score!"

So the siege began, and hours passed without any change worth while taking place. Frequently either Jerry or Zander would amuse themselves by a few old tricks known to pioneers and Indians alike in the days when caravans used to trek across the plains.

Both of their hats were perforated several times by well-aimed shots, and it was lucky that their heads did not happen to be in the coverings at the time, but only the sticks the two punchers used to raise the hats into the range of vision of their enemies.

The boys were worried to figure just how they could give their enemies the slip, having suggested, and thrown aside, a number of plans, when something entirely unexpected came about to lend them a helping hand.

"Well, well, well!" Zander was heard to say, with both wonder are glee in his voice. "Say, boys, what d'you think? We've got allies up yonder on the mountain side. Saw a puff of smoke, and, will you believe me? that skunk of a Nash Yesson jumped out from behind a rock where he'd been hiding and shooting this way. He's whooping things up and tumbling all over himself, like he'd been wounded some."

Lanky, already peering out from his cover, gave a wild yell.

"They've had enough already, are getting away in a big hurry, carrying Nash along like a log. Guess he got his finish that time, for both arms are dragging on the ground."

"But who can it be willing to give us the glad hand?" Paul asked, rather bewildered, knowing that in all probability, besides themselves are the Yesson crowd, there was not a single human being in that section of the country.

It was speedy Lanky who again made an important discovery.

"Look what's coming down from up there--two men carrying guns! No, unless my eyes are fooling me, one of them's a girl rigged out like a regular sport hunter! Frank--don't faint now--but I believe it's Minnie Cuthbert!"