Page:Three Young Ranchmen.djvu/67

Rh sound that fell upon his ears was the rushing along of the stream.

As well as he was able, Allen put out his hands before him, to ward off the shock of a sudden contact of any sort, for he did not know but that he might be dashed upon a jagged rock at any instant. Then he prayed earnestly for deliverance.

On and on he swept, the stream several times making turns, first to one side and then to the other. Once his hand came brushing up to a series of rocks, but before he could grasp them he was hurled onward in an awful blackness.

A quarter of an hour went by—a time that to the young man seemed like an age—and during that period he surmised that he must have traveled a mile or more.

Then the current appeared to slacken up, and he had a feeling come over him as if the space overhead had become larger.

This must be an underground lake, he thought. "Now if IAh, bottom!"

His thought came to a sudden termination, for his feet had touched upon a sloping rock but a few feet below the surface of the stream. The rock sloped to his right, and, moving in that