Page:Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers.djvu/179

Rh go and come when I like. All I'm supposed to do is to watch my two sides of the mountain, play the ghost, and give warning when any one is coming. Sometimes I leave black and white messages, like the one I put on your tent. Those fellows fix 'em up for me. I've told 'em about you, though I didn't know who you were, and they think you have gone, for the two men on guard at the rear entrance so reported. Sometimes I stay out on the mountain for a couple of days at a time, when the weather's good, and don't go back to the cave. Those times I take food with me, and so if they see me making off with some supplies they'll think I'm going to camp out."

"It doesn't look as though we'd ever get into a cave near the top of the mountain, going this way," said Tom, as they marched along. "We're going down, instead of up."

"That's the secret of this trail," explained Bill. "We go down in a sort of valley, and then go up a pretty stiff place, and then we're on a direct trail to the entrance I told you about. It's a steep road to climb, but I guess we can manage it."

And a hard climb the adventurers did find it. The road was almost as bad as the one along the edge of the chasm, but they managed to