Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/248

230 gritty floor. The handle rapped smartly and gave out the dull sound that suggested a cavity. One claw of the tool had sunk deeply into the sand that was thickest along the walls. Sheridan stooped and released the pick, probing with his fingers, then his hand. He lay full length on the floor of the cave, his arm lost to sight.

"There's a rock curtain here," he said excitedly. "Water action both sides, leaving a hanging ledge of hard rock. Big space back here. Look at the draught." As he withdrew arm and hand, and Quong bent with a torch, they could see the grains of sand blowing away where floor and wall came close together.

"If that leads in the right direction?" cried Sheridan."

"It does," cried Red. "It's a hunch! Let's play it. Where's those drills?"

They attacked the rock under Sheridan's directions, bringing in water from the camp for the drillings. The two riders acted as muckers, holding the steel drills, spooning out the muck that accumulated as they turned the sharpened ends. Quong held a torch in each hand while Sheridan and Jackson pounded mightily and the clamor of steel on steel went booming away into the hollow vaults of the high roof. While the rock was hard, it was sandstone, and they made good progress. They made eight holes in the face, packed in their capped dynamite, lit short measures of the fuses and left them sputtering in the dark as they retreated outside, out of breath with their efforts, expectant.