CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Hidden Cave

Neither boy cried out. The accident had happened so suddenly there wasn’t time. Sandy started to protect his head from flying hunks of granite, but before he could lift his arms, he felt his body break through the curtain of tumbling rock. The next instant his feet hit solid ground and he was thrown over on his side.

For a moment Sandy lay in semi-darkness, dazed by his fall. The thundering roar of the avalanche was passing somewhere over his head. Then he remembered Mike. “Mike—you all right?” he called, almost afraid to ask the question.

It seemed hours before he heard an answering gasp. “Yes. Wind knocked out ... me.”

Sandy pulled himself over beside Mike. A swirling cloud of dust cut down visibility to a few inches. Just as he reached over to touch Mike’s arm, there was a sigh and Mike struggled to sit up. “I’m okay now, thanks,” he said. “I just couldn’t catch my breath.” He looked around wonderingly. “What happened?”

They were sitting in what looked like the entrance to a large cave that sloped back down into the mountain at a steep slant. A jagged pile of loose stones nearly—but not quite—blocked the mouth.

“How did we get here?” Mike asked in an awed voice. The dust had settled and they were sitting in a tomblike silence. Occasionally a single stone clattered noisily down the slope outside.

“I’ll tell you in a minute.” Sandy crawled over the rocks and stuck his head out through the opening.

“What do you see?” Mike called.

“We got caught in an avalanche, all right,” Sandy said. “Half the mountain seems to be down there below us.”

“I still don’t see how we ended up in here.”

“There’s only one explanation,” Sandy said as he scrambled back to join Mike. “The slide was covering the mouth of this cave. When the rocks started to give way, the entrance suddenly opened up and we fell in.”

“And all that stuff passed right over our heads,” Mike said.

“Looks like that’s it.”

The two boys stared at each other in silence. “You know,” Sandy said quietly, “we’re a couple of pretty lucky guys.”

“I’ll say! If we had been any other place when the slide started to go....”

“We’d be down there at the bottom under a few hundred tons of rock,” Sandy finished.

“Let’s not talk about it.” Mike shivered.

“All right,” Sandy agreed. “Let’s talk about how we’re going to get out of here.”

Mike’s brows knit together in a frown. “Do you think Hank knows what happened?”

Sandy laughed. “One thing’s for sure,” he said. “He certainly heard us. That was a pretty big racket we set off.”

“Yeah,” Mike agreed. “But I wonder if he knows where we are?”

“I don’t see how he can,” Sandy replied. “Do you feel good enough to crawl up to the entrance?”

“Oh, sure,” Mike said. “I’m fine.”

Together they scrambled over the loose rubble that had collected at the mouth of the cave. “Let’s take it easy,” Sandy said, picking his way with care. “We don’t want to start another one.”

Mike flashed Sandy a grin over his shoulder. “Why not?” he demanded. “Now that we’ve done it once, the next time should be easier.”

“Do me a favor and practice it when I’m not around,” Sandy said with a chuckle. He pulled himself up to the lip of the cave and leaned over. “Nobody in sight,” he announced.

“Do you think it’s safe to go down?”

“I don’t know,” Sandy said. “I wish we could see Hank.”

“I’ve got an idea,” Mike declared. “We’ve got our rifles. Why don’t we fire off a couple of shots?”

“Hey, that’s using your head!” Sandy commented. “Can you reach mine and unstrap it?” Both boys still carried their rifles, having secured them firmly to their packs before starting out. Sandy could feel Mike working the slings of his rifle loose. “Got it?” he asked.

“Just a minute,” Mike muttered. “There,” he said at last. “Where are the shells?”

“In a flap pocket on the side.”

“I see them.”

Mike opened the box and fed the shells into the chamber. “Here,” he said. “Fire away. The safety’s on.”

Sandy took the gun, flipped the safety switch and jabbed the barrel out of the cave. He fired twice. The booming shots echoed hollowly as they rumbled over the mountains.

“Hear any answer?” Mike asked.

“Give him a chance.”

A moment later they heard a pair of muffled explosions. Mike grinned over at Sandy. “That’s Hank, all right. Let’s try it again.”

“Okay.” Sandy blasted two more holes in the sky and sat back to wait. This time Hank answered almost immediately.

“I wonder where he is?” Mike muttered.

“Hank!” Sandy shouted. “Hello!”

“Sandy!” came a voice. “Mike! Are you all right?”

“We’re fine!” Sandy yelled.

“Where are you?”

“Up here!”

“That’s a big help!” Hank’s voice was tinged with sarcasm. “Where’s ‘up here’?”

“He’s got a point,” Sandy muttered sheepishly. “Do you have a handkerchief, Mike?”

“I think so.” Mike fumbled in his pocket. “Here.”

Quickly Sandy tied the white handkerchief to the forward sight of the gun and poked it out over the ledge. “Can you see that?” he yelled. “I’m waving a handkerchief.”

After a minute or two there was an excited shout from below. “I’ve got you! How’d you two ever manage to get up there?”

“It wasn’t easy!” Mike yelled back. “If you can figure a way of getting us down, we’ll let you in on our secret.”

“What’s the matter with walking?”

“You think it’s safe?”

“Sure. It is now.”

Sandy and Mike grinned at each other. “Sounds simple,” Mike said. “Let’s go.”

Minutes later they were down at the foot of the slope, telling Hank, as best they could, what had happened.

When they finished, Hank looked at both of them and shook his head. “You know,” he said, “some people think there’s a guardian angel whose special job is to look out for tenderfeet in the mountains. I never believed it before. But I do now. There’s no other explanation.”

Mike thought back over the past several days and broke into a grin. “If there is such an angel,” he said, “the poor fellow must be close to a nervous breakdown. He’s been working overtime.”

Hank grunted and peered up the side of the mountain. “It’s funny about that cave,” he said. “You think it’s a big one?”

Sandy nodded. “It looked that way to us.”

“It must have been covered over for a long time. I’ve never seen it before.”

“Why don’t we explore it some day?”

“Not a bad idea.” Hank’s eyes were still glued to the hillside. “You can hardly see it from here,” he said. “The rocks cover it up completely.”

“A good place for an ambush—if there were any Indians around,” Sandy commented.

“Or a hiding place,” Mike suggested.

Hank glanced at them with amusement. “You fellows sure have lively imaginations.”

“Well, you see,” Mike explained seriously, “we live such dull lives. Nothing ever happens to us.”

Hank laughed. “All right,” he said, “let’s give you a little action. Still want that goat?”

“Is he still around?” Sandy asked wonderingly. “After all that noise?”

“You mean the goat we spotted up on the peak? Oh no! He lit out for Canada soon as he heard you two tearing that mountain apart. But he’s not the only billy in these hills. How about it?” He looked at them closely. “Or are you still a little shaky?”

Sandy turned to Mike. “What do you think?” he asked. It had almost stopped raining, but instead of clearing, the sky had taken on an even darker, more ominous color. Mike squinted up at the gathering clouds, hitched his pack more comfortably onto his shoulders and nodded. “Let’s go!” he said firmly.

Hank grinned at them. “You boys are all right,” he said. “I’m going to take you to a hill that’s swarming with goats. I never took anybody there before. We might even get ourselves a head that’ll make the record books.”

But just as he started to turn down the trail, the storm broke with violent, ear-shattering fury. Angry flickers of lightning danced across the tops of nearby ridges. An earth-shaking peal of thunder boomed and rattled down far-off valleys. The rain, which earlier had been falling in a steady drizzle, now came flooding down in streaming torrents.

“Let’s find some shelter,” Mike shouted.

“Don’t bother,” Hank replied, pulling up the collar of his jacket. “We’re about as wet as we’ll ever be. Let’s head back to the house. The mountains aren’t safe in an electric storm.”

Bracing himself against the wind, Hank hunched over and bulled his way through the driving rain, with Sandy and Mike following. It was a miserable hike back, climbing down muddy ravines and slipping over wet gravelly rock. Sandy breathed a sigh of relief when he caught sight of the well-worn trail that led down to Hank’s lodge.

“Boy, that looks good!” he shouted above the wind.

Mike looked back and started to say something, but an enormous clap of thunder drowned his words. He gave it up and grinned instead.

They were about halfway down the trail when two sharp reports rang out over the howling storm. Hank stopped abruptly.

“What’s that?” Mike asked. “Thunder?”

As another report boomed out, Hank stiffened in surprise.

“No,” he said uneasily, reaching for the rifle at his back. “Those are shots. Somebody’s shooting down near the house.”

Suddenly all three of them were running down the trail. They had heard a sound that was definitely not a part of the storm. It was a terrible, high-pitched scream that cut through the sighing wind like a knife.