CHAPTER XIV

A BIT OF ENGINEERING

“You’re right, there, Harry!” Frank answered. “You stated the question before the house correctly!”

“Oh, we’ll get out some way,” Jack insisted. “We’re not going to stay in this little old hole forever. It’s too cold here.”

“Can you walk, Harry?” asked Frank.

“In a short time, probably,” was the reply. “While I’m resting, you boys chase around and see if there’s any chance of getting back to the surface of the earth again.”

Frank and Jack spent some time walking about the edge of the pool but could find nothing that looked like an exit.

“If I could turn myself into a barrel of water,” Jack stated with a whimsical smile, “I could run out!”

“Yes, and if you could change yourself into a bird,” Frank laughed, “you could fly out. But you’re not fluid, and you haven’t got wings, so I guess we’ve got to find some other way.”

“Speaking about water,” Jack mused, “how does the water get out of here? It seems to come from springs in the sides of the pool as well as from rills down the mountainside when the snow melts. If it didn’t get out in some way, the Devil’s Punch Bowl would simply be a mountain lake. Perhaps we can get through the passage made by the water.”

Following this suggestion, the boys passed around the pool a number of times always dodging the handle-like spur which shot into the basin by turning back, and finally came to a whirlpool on the east side which showed the drop in the water. The boys examined the whirl of water earnestly.

“Is the hole which makes this whirlpool clear down to the bottom?” asked Jack.

“It isn’t more than four feet from the surface,” answered Frank. “It runs in the wall.”

“You can see it, can you?” asked Jack.

“Plainly,” was the reply. “It’s as large as a church door.”

“It wouldn’t be safe to dive in there and swim through, would it?”

“I should say not!” replied Frank. “The passage is entirely filled by the current and you couldn’t breathe in there more than half a minute. Besides all that, the swiftness of the current shows a steep fall and you’d probably bump your head against a rock before you went a hundred feet. Nothing doing in that line, kid!”

Again and again the boys tramped around the edge of the pool, stopping whenever they came to Harry’s side to speak words of encouragement, but all they discovered in the way of an exit was a crevice which might at one time have furnished an exit for the waters.

The wash from the rocks, brought down, undoubtedly, by water from the melting snows, had apparently lifted the margin of the pool at least a yard above the mouth of the old crevice, which was something like a foot in width. This accumulation of pulverized rock formed a perfect and complete dam across the mouth of the opening.

“Here’s a dry exit,” Frank exclaimed with a grim smile. “If we could just whittle off a few pounds of fat, we might be able to get through there!”

“It dips down pretty fast,” Jack answered. “The chances are that we’d get about such a bump as Harry received before we found the sunshine again. Well, it’s not large enough anyway,” he added, “so we may as well look for some other means of egress.”

While the boy was still standing by the crevice looking about with hopeful eyes, Frank caught sight of a moving object on the rim above.

“Now, what do you suppose that is?” he asked.

In a moment, Jack’s eyes rested on the object, too.

“It’s a boy!” he said. “A boy all right enough, and it’s peaches to prunes that he’s the chap who’s been playing villain ever since we came into the mountains. I wish he had with him the rope that he will eventually be hanged with.”

“Hush!” replied Frank with a grimace. “Keep it dark! Don’t you ever tell him that he’s going to be hanged. If you do, he won’t ever help us out of this blooming old punch bowl.”

The boy stood looking down into the bowl for a moment, listening to the shouts for assistance which the boys now sent up, made a few quick signals, and turned away.

As the reader understands, the assistance Norman sought to give the boys could best be rendered by seeking their friends and informing them of the situation. Jack and Frank were, of course, greatly enraged at the boy’s seemingly heartless desertion of them.

“Now what do you think of that for a cold-blooded reptile?” demanded Jack. “That fellow certainly is the limit!”

“You just wait,” Frank shouted, almost dancing about in his anger, “you just wait till I get my hands on that gink. I’ll change his face so his friends won’t know him. The idea of his going off and leaving us in such a fix as this!”

“It’s rotten!” Jack agreed.

“Rotten?” echoed Frank, “it’s worse than rotten! It’s stinking mean!”

“Which reminds me,” Jack went on, “that if we ever get out of here we’ve got to accomplish the exit by our own exertions.”

“You talk like you had a suggestion to make,” Frank declared.

“I have!” answered Jack. “You see that crevice in the edge of the Punch Bowl, don’t you? Well, that used to carry away the waters of the pool. Some day the water became stuffed with sand and the pool found another way out.”

“I begin to understand!” Frank exclaimed. “I think I know what you mean. You have an idea that we can restore the water to its old channel and creep out through the larger passage, like the Egyptians crossing the Red Sea without getting their feet wet?”

“That’s the idea,” Jack exclaimed, “that’s just the idea! Only the Egyptians didn’t cross the Red Sea without getting their feet wet. It was the Hebrew children who crossed between two vertical walls of water. The Egyptians got theirs right there in the mud!”

“Have it your own way,” Frank laughed. “I’m afraid I don’t remember my Sunday School lessons very well. Have it your own way, only plan some escape from this everlasting pit.”

“Just as I was about to say when you interrupted with your fake story about the Egyptian army,” Jack went on, “we may be able in time to cut through the natural levee that separates the waters of the pool from the old channel. If we can, we can draw the water out of the present exit and use it for our own escape.”

“That’s the idea!” Frank declared.

The two boys now made a closer inspection of the natural levee and the mouth of the crevice. They discovered that by cutting through a couple of feet of sand, the distance being about ten feet, they could, indeed, turn the waters of the pool into its old channel.

Of course this would not provide a depth of channel sufficient to empty the pool, but they believed that, with the natural wash of the current, the surface might be lowered so that water would no longer find its way into the large opening.

Working with such bits of sharp-edged shale as they could find, the boys fell to their task without delay. Harry, observing their industry from a distance, smiled happily at the thought that the boys had at least found a way out which was worth considering.

“If we just had a couple of shovels like those muckers use over on the East river,” Jack said, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket, “we could cut through this obstruction in about five minutes. This is a fierce game!”

“I’m getting so I like these strenuous moments,” Frank declared, putting both hands to his aching back. “The fact of the matter is,” he went on, “that I’d rather be at work draining the Devil’s Punch Bowl than playing the part of a little sissy cigar-store boy in New York.”

“I’m glad you like it!” Jack replied, sourly.

It was almost dark when at last the trench was completed. It was with great satisfaction that the boys saw the water trickle into the new channel and find its way to the crevice. As the current grew stronger, it washed the banks away, and in a very short time a roaring torrent was rushing into the old outlet.

“That’s the idea!” Frank exclaimed. “There’s a head of water here that ought to cut that channel six feet deep,” he went on. “And that will give us a dry tunnel to walk out of.”

“To walk into,” corrected Jack. “We don’t know whether we’ll ever walk out of it or not.”

“Well, you needn’t tell that to Harry!” exclaimed Frank reproachfully. “We’ve got to make him believe that it’s a sure thing we can get him out of this rotten old excavation in the hills.”

“And we’re going to do it, too!” declared Jack. “I don’t know just how we’re going to do it, but we’re going to do it! The channel will soon be dry enough for us to investigate, and somewhere is better than nowhere—by which I mean this hole in the rocks.”

Hearing the rushing water, Harry arose to a sitting position and looked over toward his chums with a smile on his pale face.

“I knew you could do it!” he shouted, still in a faint voice. “I knew you would find a way.”

“You bet we’ll find a way!” Jack answered. “We’ve been in worse holes than this and always got out!”

“Now you’ve said something!” Frank declared.

The boys watched the running water, every moment gaining in force, for a long time, and then, just as the last rays of the sun touched the snowy mantle of the mountain, the water passed below the level of a large opening and they saw it drying out.

“That’s what Grant did at Vicksburg,” Frank laughed. “When he found the water occupying the channel he wanted to use himself, he just turned it to one side.”

“That’s exactly what we’ve done here,” Jack agreed, “but now that we have turned it aside, there’s a question as to whether we can make the same use of the channel.”

“The only way to find out is to go to it,” Frank advised. “Did those ginks take away your searchlight?”

“They did not,” was the reply. “They took away my revolver and looked at the searchlight, but the latter they passed back to me because it seemed to be worthless as a weapon and bulky to carry.”

“I’ve got mine, too,” Frank said, “if it isn’t smashed.”

The boys examined their electrics with great care, and, to their great satisfaction, found that they were still fit for use.

It was now so dark that the lights were actually needed in the pit, still they did not turn them on, fearful that the boy who had shown himself for an instant and then disappeared might return with the half-breeds.

“The first thing to do,” Jack suggested, “is to bring Harry over to the mouth of this dry channel. You see,” he went on, “we’ve got to investigate the place before we attempt to carry him in, and he’ll feel better if we place him where he can hear our voices and see our lights. I guess we can carry him so as not to cause him suffering or injure his bruises.”

“I’ll just bet he can walk over,” Frank declared. “Anyway, I know he won’t like the idea of being carried around like a baby.”

On being consulted upon the point, Harry declared that he could walk just as well as not, and walk he did, although his steps were rather shaky at first. The entrance to the tunnel was quite large, tapering away as it mined the hill. Into this large outer chamber, for such it virtually was, Harry was seated with one of the searchlights for company, and Frank and Jack proceeded on their tour of investigation.

For the first few feet they were able to walk with their backs only slightly bent but then they advanced slowly on their hands and knees. When at last they reached a steep declivity extending, apparently, far into the heart of the mountain, they turned back and brought the wounded boy up to that place.

“Now keep your light covered,” Jack advised, “and if anyone comes down to the pit led by that thief of a boy messenger, they will naturally think we had made a get-away.”

“We’re going down this long incline,” Frank went on, “and when we get to the bottom, if everything is clear, we’re coming back after you.”

For a time the voices and lights of the boys supplied companionship for the wounded lad, then they were heard and seen no more.

Harry waited for a long time for some sign of the return of his friends, but they did not come and he feared the worst.