Page:Bedford-Jones--Boy Scouts of the Air at Cape Peril.djvu/233

 peculiar low mound on the side of the dune nearer the ocean and thought I saw sand roll down as if dislodged by something stirring beneath. I called King's attention, and he agreed with me. There was a telltale place in the sand partly covered by a piece of wood that, in our whispered consultation, we decided was left for an air hole. Our course of action was decided on. We circled around, crawled to the top of that sand hill, and, getting our bearing, slid down a space and then both gave a spring and piled plumb on that suspected spot. And great Lawd, man, you would have thought we'd hit the top of a volcano, from the shindy the corpse raised when it acknowledged receipt of our attention, but we had him pinned and it was a question of his suffocating in two minutes, or lying quiet. First a foot resurrected, a shoe-less foot swollen to twice its natural size, and then an arm. The right hand, not the left with the stumped fingers."

"He had two stumped fingers on his left hand, did he?"

"How did you know that? Did you see him?" inquired Hardy in surprise.