Part 12 (1/2)

”To stone?”

”By the removal of their own tissues and replacement by mineral matter. A fossil may be merely the print of a leaf of some prehistoric plant on sandstone, or the footprint of some antediluvian reptile. In the National Museum they have a cast of a prehistoric shad that shows the imprint of every bone and fin ray.”

”How on earth could that have been formed?” marveled Ted.

”Why, it was simply buried in fine mud, which first protects it from the air, (and consequent immediate decay), then gradually fills every pore of every bone, till by the time the mud has turned to stone, the bones are ossified. Of course the animal matter has all dissolved away by this time. Now if this mud that filled the pores happened to be silica, (a sandy formation), it is possible to eat the surrounding limestone away with acids and uncover the silica formation, see, old kid?”

”Aw, that stuff makes my head ache,” protested Tim. ”If I see any ossified bones lying around, or even a footprint or leaf print in the stone, I'll know I've found a fossil. But I thought we were chasing fire-bugs.”

”The impatience of youth!” Ace playfully squelched him, from the vantage point of his slight seniority.

”What does the Bible say,” laughed the Ranger, ”about truth from the mouths of babes?” And he arose a bit stiffly,--for he had had a strenuous time of it the past few days, and the cave damp had set his tired limbs to aching.

For upwards of an hour they followed dark and winding pa.s.sageways, (rats and lizards and occasional colonies of bats fleeing before them), naturally without the slightest sign of the fugitives, when they came to another grotto, the loveliest they had yet seen. It might have been a fairy cavern, aglitter with pure crystal. The carved prisms shone dazzlingly in the light of the carbide lamp, and the boys stuffed their pockets with some of the jewel-like bits that had fallen to the floor.

From this they presently entered into what seemed like a Gothic cathedral, with a dome whose highest point must have been several hundred feet above. The boys were fairly awed by its beauty, while the Ranger's eyes gleamed appreciatively. On the walls were what might have been carvings of flowers and lacework, creamy to smoke color, gypsum, Ace told them.

”Are these fossils?” demanded Ted excitedly.

”I should say not, you poor fis.h.!.+--You ichthyosaurus,” laughed Ace teasingly.

”You what?” asked the Ranger.

”That means ancient fish.”

”All right,” grinned Ted. ”If I'm an ich----”

”Ich-thy-o-saur-us?” Radcliffe came to his rescue.

”Then you're a dinosaur,” grinned Ted.

”Here, here, stop calling each other names!” commanded Radcliffe. ”And perhaps Ace will tell us about this gypsum formation.”

”Thunder! Wish Norris was here! I tell you I'm no professor. But if you're after fossils, don't you remember what he told us, that day just before we lost the pack burro?--That in this part of California we have rock from the Cambrian era a mile thick, and I'll bet it's full of fossils of the fish age!”

”Well,” Radcliffe briskly interposed, as they came to another turn, ”we'll never find those Mexicans unless we separate and hunt faster than we've been doing. Are you fellows game for taking one way while I go back to that last turn and try the left hand pa.s.sageway? Of course the instant you get wind of them, report back to me.” They signified their gameness by picking a precarious footing, (Ted first), along the slippery floor, their candles thrust in their hat bands.

Above they came to another but a smaller forest of alabaster stalact.i.tes, s.h.i.+ning like icicles or mosses, some white as snow, some yellow as gold, and some so like maple sugar in appearance that Ace actually tasted it.

In one place there was a bit of what Ace said was needle gypsum, that hung as fine as fur.

Radcliffe, retracing his steps, (with the aid of the twine ball), till he came to the cross roads, as it were, turned to the left and forged ahead with his carbide lamp, treading softly as a cougar, with revolver c.o.c.ked in his right hand. Ever and anon he stopped breath-still to listen.

Pa.s.sing through the same alabaster cavern that had so impressed the Spanish boy, his eye caught the bandanna Pedro had dropped in the left-hand pa.s.sageway. With an inward exclamation, he hurried on till he had reached the end of the blind. Stooping with his lamp, he could see the fresh scratches their feet had made. Darting back to the turn of the tunnel, where he had picked up the bandanna, he took the only choice left to him, the right hand way, with all the satisfaction of a hound on the scent. More scratches on the sandstone floor a.s.sured him that they had really gone this way, instead of turning back the way they had come, and presently he too was standing in the gallery of the sloping floor and yellowed pillars, at whose far end the dripstone cataract hung, turned to soundless stone. But of the three Mexicans and Pedro there was no trace.

”I say, when do we eat?” Ace was just beginning, when the floor suddenly gave way beneath him, and he fell down a ten foot well, landing on all fours, in Stygian blackness. And no sooner had his bulk padded the stone beneath than Ted came, plunk! almost on top of him.

At the moment both were slightly stunned. Their candle flames had of course been flicked out. Then Ted reached mechanically for his matches, by whose flare he found his hat, and still firmly stuffed into the band, his candles. The light disclosed a cavern with muddy walls dripping above them, and to their right, an inky pool of water. The air was all aflutter with the bats they had startled from their pendant slumbers, lizards scuttled away in all directions, and a fish flopped in the pool, with a splash that sounded out of all proportion to its exciting cause. Ted grinned as he saw Ace first pinch himself to see if he were dreaming, then slowly feel his joints to make sure none were seriously damaged.

The fall had rather jolted his nerves, but otherwise he was unhurt, as was his chum. But how to return the way they had come they could not see, for the walls were too slippery to climb, there was not a spear of anything movable in sight on which they might gain a foothold, and when Ted tried it from Ace's shoulders, the rim of the well was too slippery with mud for him to gain a hand-hold.

The bats, blind from their lightless lives, b.u.mped against them and added the final touch of weirdness by their gnome-like faces.