Part 33 (2/2)
”It does move--just a little,” he said. He put all of his strength into a fresh attack. The boulder trembled slightly--that was all.
”I'll bet you my half of the loot that I've got the hang of it, Miss Betty,” he announced triumphantly.
”Wait and see.”
He began looking about him for something.
”If I only dared slip outside for a minute,” he said. Then his eye fell on the rifle. ”We'll have to make this do. I run a risk of jamming the front sight but I guess we can fix that.”
He protected the sight as well as he could by wrapping his handkerchief about it. The muzzle of the gun he thrust down into the hole in the rock.
”Get it now?” he asked. ”If that hole wasn't made to allow a lever to be inserted, then tell me what it _was_ made for. And here's even the place to stand while a man uses it! I'll double the bet!”
That excitement which always gets into any man's blood when he believes that he is on the threshold of a golden discovery, already shone in his eyes. He stepped to a sort of shelf in the cavern wall close to the boulder, so that now his feet were on a level with the top of the rock he meant to move. So he could just reach out and grasp the b.u.t.t of the rifle. Betty stood by, watching with an eagerness no less than his own. Gradually he set his force at work on his lever, trying this way and that. And then--
”It's moving!” cried Betty. ”The rock is turning!”
And now it turned readily, his leverage being ample to the task.
”Look under the rock as it tips back,” he told Betty. ”See if there isn't a hole under it. Big enough for a man to go through!”
”Yes!” answered Betty after a breathless fas.h.i.+on. ”Yes. A little more. Oh, come see. It looks almost like steps going down!”
”I'll have to force it back a little farther,” he returned. ”Maybe it will balance there. If not we'll have to get loose stones and wedge under it.”
He pried it further and further until at last it would not budge another inch. He loosened his grip a trifle on the rifle-lever and the rock began to settle back into its former place. But Betty had seen and already was bringing fragments of stone to block under the edges.
”Now,” she called. ”Come see.”
He jumped down; the boulder, wedged securely, lay on its side. He went to Betty and from what they saw before them they looked into each other's eyes wonderingly.
”The tale was true,” he said with conviction. ”You and I have found the way to the treasure.”
In the floor was an opening a couple of feet square. Very rude, uneven steps led down, vanis.h.i.+ng in a forbidding black dark. Kendric lay flat and looked down. Little by little he could penetrate a bit further, but in the end there lay a region of impenetrable darkness into which the steps merged.
”You're going down _there_!” gasped Betty.
”_Am_ I?” he laughed. ”You wouldn't want us to skip out tonight without even having looked into it, would you?”
”N-o.” But she hesitated and even shuddered as she too lay down and peered into the forbidding place.
”We'll not take any chances we don't have to.” He got up and began immediately to make his few preparations. ”Here's the rifle; I'll leave it handy for you in case our friend Rios should surprise us.
I'll take a handful of stuff with me to burn for a torch. And we'll have another look out into the canon to begin with.”
He drew out the rifle and gave it to Betty. He placed other stones with the ones she had slipped under the edges of the boulders. And finally he went to look out into the canon.
”No one in sight,” he reported. ”And now, here goes.”
He sat down at the edge of the opening in the floor, set a match to his crude torch, grinned comfortingly up at Betty and wriggled over and set his foot to the first step. As he did so there came to him an unpleasant memory of the fas.h.i.+on in which Zoraida had guarded her own secret places with rattlesnakes; he wondered if any of the ugly brutes lived down here? As it happened the thought had its influence in saving him from mishap later. For, though he came upon no snakes, he went warily and thus avoided another danger.
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