CHAPTER X.

IN A LIVING TOMB.

It might have been hours for aught they knew that they had lain there.

Frank was the first to regain consciousness. He heard someone groan and called out demanding whose voice it was.

"It's Tony, or what little is left of him," was the answer.

"Are you hurt?"

"Donno. Feel as if the roof had caved in on me. Where's the rest of the gang?"

"If they only have got out of it as easily as we have we can count ourselves the luckiest men on earth," returned the elder James boy with emphasis.

Forgetting his recent wound, which the herbs of the medicine man had most miraculously put to sleep so that he felt no pain at all, Frank struggled to his feet and struck a match. Texas and Harry he espied lying in a heap in one corner half hidden by the debris which had fallen upon them.

Out of the wreck he gathered some sticks and rekindled the fire which in a moment brightly illuminated the chamber. The scene that met his gaze was one of wreck and ruin.

But to this the bandit gave no heed. His first care was for the other members of the band.

"They're alive, Tony," he cried, "every man of them. Come help me get them out--"

"You'll have to get Tony out first, I'm thinkin'. I'm wedged in here under this heap of stuff tighter'n a sardine in a box."

It was but the work of a moment for Frank to release the imprisoned desperado, and after taking careful inventory of his anatomy and learning to his delight that no bones had been broken, both men turned to with a will and began digging out their companions.

"Thank Providence, or whatever or whoever did it, that my flask was not broken," exclaimed Frank.

"Here, hold Texas's head while I pour a few fingers down his throat. That'll bring him around if anything will."

And it did. Texas gasped, strangled, sat up and swore roundly.

The others were quickly restored to consciousness and the men were overjoyed that all had escaped.

"Say," spoke up Tony suddenly. "That explosion come from that other room there. What do you s'pose did it--"

"And the medicine man and the squaw were in there alone, weren't they?" asked Frank.

"By the gods you're right," exclaimed Texas.

With one accord each man grabbed up a burning brand and climbing over the obstructions that the explosion had placed in their way, dashed into the adjoining chamber.

If anything the disaster had been greater here than in the other room.

"There's the redskin all shot to pieces," cried Harry.

"Yes, deader'n a tick," agreed Texas. "But where is the gal?"

"Yes, where is the girl?" demanded Frank suddenly aroused to action.

"Blown into little pieces. She's too tender to stand a racket that would put out a giant like the medicine man," opined Tony. "But where the devil is she? There ain't no pieces of her layin' about here as I sees. It makes a feller shivery--like--kinder weak under the belt."

"Dig! Dig like hell every man of you!" roared Frank in a frenzy of haste at thought that the girl who had proved such a friend in need might be dying within a few feet of them for want of a willing hand to give her succor.

They set to with a will.

"Dew Drop here," piped a voice that seemed to come out of the air, but from just what direction none could say.

They looked about; peered into every corner and crevice, then faced each other questioningly.

"Hello!" shouted Frank, but only the echoes of his own voice came back to him.

"Mebby it's the Great Spirit she was tellin' us about," suggested Texas with a hoarseness in his throat that he tried vainly to down. "She's a dead one that's sure--"

"Dew Drop no go Happy Hunting Ground; Medicine man he go Happy Hunting Ground. Mebby Jesse Jame he happy Hunting Ground," came in the plaintive tone of the Indian maiden.

It was maddening.

In a moment these hardy desperadoes who had faced death in a thousand forms, would feel their courage oozing from their finger tips and would make a run for the outer air.

"Where are you?" roared Frank. "Are you dead or alive?"

"Me here; me no with Great Spirit."

"Where?" bellowed Tony. "Where in the humping pizen snakes be you anyhow? You sound as if you was over my head, but if you be you're a dead one, and that goes."

Frank with a sudden thought in his mind was shading his eyes from the flaming torches and peering up into the shadows. There, more than ten feet above their heads, he saw the form of the little Indian maiden wedged in a crevice of rocks where she had evidently been hurled by the sudden explosion.

The men shouted for pure joy.

"Jump, you little devil," shouted Texas, "we'll catch you."

"Paleface say well. Dew Drop no jump."

"Not jump? Don't be afraid," reassured Frank.

"Dew Drop um no jump. Um fast," she wailed.

"She's wedged in between the rocks," yelled Tony. "Git a ladder somebody quick."

Everybody laughed but it was evident that Tony in his excitement was in dead earnest.

"Yes, how we going to git the gal down?" demanded Texas.

"Can't one of you take a running jump and reach her?" cried Frank. "If my leg wasn't game I'd do it myself."

"Yes, you would," sneered Tony. "You ain't no bird and neither be I. That's twelve feet if its one up there."

"I've got an idee," interrupted Homely Harry. "I'll stand agin the wall and you fellers climb up on top of me, one top of tother. I've seen 'em do that in a circus once. We kin git her down that way."

Frank shot an approving glance at him.

"You're the only one in the bunch that's got a head on his shoulders about now I reckon. I ain't much on the climb, but try it and if you don't get her, I'll go to the top of the pile myself."

The agile mountaineers formed a human pyramid in a moment with Texas as the top-mounter, Tony groaning beneath his weight and threatening every moment to give way sending the pyramid a bruised and broken wreck to the hard stone floor of the cave.

It was with no little effort that they finally accomplished the feat of releasing the girl from her rocky prison.

But once free she slid down the pyramid with the grace of a lofty tumbler.

Tony and Texas came down rather less easily.

"Now I want to know what this is all about?" demanded Frank when they once more had recovered themselves.

"Yes, what devil's prank put this joint on the blink?" added Tony. "I've had some jars in my time, but I never did have such an all-fired bump as this one."

"Me not know," answered Dew Drop hanging her head.

"What were you and the bones doing when it happened?" urged Frank, pointing to the mangled remains of the medicine man.

Dew Drop gazed at the horrid sight with emotionless eyes, then turned toward them.

"Me make fire burn one--two times--"

"Yes, yes," they chorused.

"You put wood on the fire to make it bright," added Frank.

The Indian girl nodded.

"What then?"

"Make fire more.

"Then heap fire like sun. Dew Drop go sleep. Great Spirit get um. Dew Drop open eyes--see pale faces and um want see Dew Drop."

Harry scratched his head.

"Clear as the big Muddy in a spring freshet," agreed Tony.

"Wait a minute," commanded Frank, raising a restraining hand.

"You put one, two, three sticks on fire, then you put another?"

Dew Drop nodded vigorously.

"But when you put on the fourth one, hey?"

"Um pale face he know."

"Then the whole business went up?"

Dew Drop puffed out her cheeks and said "Pouf! So."

"Well I'll be damned!" exclaimed Frank.

"What is it?" demanded Texas.

"What was it?" urged Tony.

"Dynamite!" snapped the desperado holding the girl with a wondering gaze. "And you near put us all out of business at the same time.

"Yes, dynamite. I understand it all now. _Jess must have left those sticks here and the girl used one of them to build the fire with._ It's a wonder it didn't blow us all to kingdom come."

A loud guffaw greeted Frank's explanation.

All danger past they could afford to look on the humorous side of the disaster now.

"Well, we got rid of old saw bones quicker'n we thought," chuckled Tony. "Good thing Jesse wasn't here. It might have got him too, for he'd a been right on top of it likely as not."

"Jess. I had forgotten," cried Frank. "What has become of him? He's got into trouble, I'll bet my spurs on it. It must have been hours since he went away.

"Say Dew Drop, did he go with you?"

The girl shook her head.

The men looked into each other's faces in dismay.

"Come, we must find him," cried Frank, his face narrowing down until the lines of it laid up in projecting, stern wrinkles.

"Mebbe Big Bear git um Jess Jame," vouchsafed the girl stoically.

"What's that?" demanded Frank suddenly turning on her.

"Mebbe sojers git um Jess Jame."

"Soldiers. No, they're miles away to the north of us by now. We headed them toward the fort hours ago."

"Sojers come back," averred the girl.

"Came back? How do you know?"

"Me see um, Me see injuns. Injuns he look for Jess Jame."

"The girl is right," roared Frank. "Out of this devilish hole. They've got him. What can one man do against a company of infantry and a whole village of redskins. Come!"

The bandit strode toward the opening whence they had first entered, then stopped short.

"Trapped!" he cried hoarsely.

"The explosion has blocked our entrance. We're caught like rats in a trap."

The outlaws groaned.

Hoarse curses and muttered imprecations were passed from lip to lip as the enraged desperadoes ran from point to point seeking in vain for some means of egress from their rocky tomb.

"We're done for," snarled Tony, his hand slipping instinctively to his pistol holster.

"Jess will get us out somehow," soothed Harry.

"No. Jess is probably in a worse fix than we are at this very minute," exploded Frank, "and--"

A timid pressure on his arm caused him to look suddenly down.

"Well, what is it?" he demanded shortly. "Haven't you got us into enough trouble already? What do you want now? Say it and say it quick."

"Pale face um want go way?"

"Want to? Holy snakes, hear the girl," laughed Tony harshly. "I calkerlate it don't make a mighty sight of difference whether we want to or not. We don't."

"Silence!" commanded Frank.

"Well, what is it, girl?"

"Pale face want go--Dew Drop want go. Um show pale face."

So astounded were the outlaws at her amazing confidence in her ability to pilot them to freedom, that for a moment no one answered, and by the time they had gathered their wits again, Dew Drop was tripping on velvet feet to the chamber they had just left.

They sprang after her eagerly, but just in time to see the girl disappear behind a pyramid of rock and which they now discovered for the first time, led into another passage.

"Hold on," called Tony, "you're taking us further into this infernal hole."

But Dew Drop made no reply.

Her confident manner brought hope to the bandit's hearts almost in spite of their determination not to be trapped at any cost.

"Bring lights," commanded Frank.

They did so.

As they progressed they noticed that their course was leading them up and up, further and further, and with each rise of the trail their spirits ascended proportionately.

"Hooray! I see moonlight," cried Texas. "By gad we're getting out as sure as you're alive."

Dew Drop turned and laid a warning finger on her lips, and bent her head in a listening attitude.

"What is it?" they demanded in bated breaths.

"Injuns," breathed the Indian maiden.

Each right slipped to pistol holster.

"Indians," muttered the desperadoes, and "Colts" were quickly unsheathed.