Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/261

Rh place. Hsu Fu speaks Spanish fluently. I imagine he would talk to Mexicans. He could almost pass for a Mexican himself in the proper clothes. He is clever enough to think of all that."

"Ill bet a month's wages he ran across Pedro," exclaimed Jackson.

Quong shrugged. The fact accomplished, he was indifferent to the means.

"I sure hate to stick here like a prairie dawg at the bottom of his hole, with a rattlesnake snoopin' round the door," said Red. "How about sneakin' to the openin' an' tossin' a couple of bombs for divertin' their attention while we make a bolt for it? We could hunt cover an' throw lead into 'em till they vamosed." Sherixlan shook his head.

"We'd have to look first to see where to throw," he said. "They'll be behind cover themselves with their guns trained on the entrance. But we might try to find some other way out. That fissure where the water came down, or some other weak place. I imagine there's mare than one. We may strike it and we've got to tackle it before our strength gives out."

He took Red with him and, using the electric torches and ticking along a pick, they searched the tunnels vainly. The fissure was impractical. Nowhere, though they explored all the cavities opening from the Chapel, could they find a place that held any hope of exit. The little stock of dynamite was pitifully inadequate. Explosion might bring down a slide. To use pick and drill would direct attention. And there was no starting point. At ten o'clock