CHAPTER XV
A STICK OF DYNAMITE
By this time Jimmie and Dick had their automatics out and were firing into the horde of rats. They killed the rodents by the score, yet for every one slaughtered a dozen seemed to appear.
Presently the chamber became so full of powder smoke, the air so stifling, that the lads were obliged to cease firing.
"Work your way up this wall," Tommy cried out to the lads as he heard them panting below. "Work your way up so we can catch hold of you, and you'll soon be out of that mess!"
"There's a dozen rats hanging to my boot!" cried Dick.
"And mine, too!" declared Jimmie.
The three boys on the outside continued to hurt refuse from the top of the wall into the chamber. This in a measure kept the rats back, and before many minutes Jimmie and Dick were drawn to the top of the barrier.
Their rubber boots were cut in scores of places by the sharp teeth of the rats, and even their clothing as high up as their shoulders showed ragged tears. A dozen or more rats hung to the boys' boots until the top was reached, then they dropped back screaming with baffled rage.
"Talk about your wild Indians!" exclaimed Tommy. "I never saw anything as vicious as that was! I told you boys not to open up an argument with those fellows! Mine rats are noted for their courage when attacked."
"How many bites did you get?" asked Elmer anxiously.
"I got half a dozen nips!" answered Jimmie.
"And so did I," Dick cut in.
"Well, you boys ought to get back to the room right away," Tommy suggested, "and have peroxide applied to the wounds. I've known of people dying of blood poison occasioned by rat bites."
"Have you got it in camp with you?" asked Elmer.
"We're the original field hospital!" laughed Tommy. "We never leave Chicago without taking with us everything needed in the first aid to the wounded line. We'd be nice Boy Scouts to go poking about the country with nothing with which to heal our wounds!"
"Boys," Elmer now said, with a mischievous grin on his face, "I want to introduce you to Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson. I've heard that your names are Sandy and Tommy, but that's all I know about it!"
"Green and Gregory!" laughed Tommy. "My name's Gregory. Sandy's name isn't Sandy at all but Charley. We call him Sandy because he looks like he'd been rolled in sand."
"Well, we may as well be getting back to headquarters!" declared Sandy after these original introductions had been made. "But hold on," he continued turning back to Jimmie and Dick, with a look on his face intended to be severe, "aren't you going to bring our provisions back?"
"The provisions," laughed Jimmie, "were hidden in the chamber where the rats were, and you're welcome to all you can get your hands on now!"
"Oh, well," Sandy groaned, "I suppose we'll have to buy more."
"One difficulty about passing in and out of the mine so frequently," Tommy stated, "is that this man Ventner is likely to catch us at it. There's no knowing what he'll do next if he finds that we're searching the place. According to Elmer, you know," he continued, "we didn't finish our job when we landed on you boys. He says the real game is now about to begin."
"He's right there!" declared Jimmie.
"Strange thing Mr. Horton didn't tell us all above it!" complained Tommy. "Where was the use of his sending us down here and making monkeys of us? He ought to be ashamed of himself!"
"He wanted to see whether you could find out what you were here for!" laughed Elmer. "Perhaps he understood that after you caught us, we'd tell you all about it. He's a pretty foxy guy, that man Horton, from all I hear about him. I'm going to Chicago some day to meet him!"
"Well, what is it we've got to look for now?" demanded Sandy.
"You just wait till we get to headquarters!" replied Jimmie.
"We ought to do that just as quickly as possible," Tommy ventured, "because there's no knowing when that bum detective may return. I'd give a whole lot of money right now to know what he is looking for!"
The three strangers regarded each other laughingly, evidently well pleased at the puzzled look showing on the faces of their friends.
"Wait till we get to headquarters and get a square meal under belts," Jimmie promised, "and we'll tell you what this bum detective's looking for. It won't take long to do it, either."
"You know, then, do you?" asked Tommy.
"Of course, we know!"
"Then why don't you tell?"
"Couldn't think of telling on an empty stomach!" laughed Jimmie provokingly.
As the boys walked along the passage, only a short distance from the old tool house, they heard a rattling and bumping on the shaft ladders and instantly extinguished their lights.
Presently they heard footsteps on the hard floor of the gangway, and then a light such as those being used by the boys flashed out.
"Now we're in for it!" exclaimed Tommy.
"For the love of Mike, don't let him see us!" whispered Jimmie.
"It'll spoil everything if he does," Dick submitted.
The boys crowded close against the wall of the gangway and waited impatiently for Ventner to pass along.
He was muttering to himself as he moved down the gangway, and his round, protruding belly and his little shapeless shoulders reminded the watching lads of the gnomes they had read about, living in underground cells and preying at night upon the fairies.
Only for a trifling accident the boys would certainly have been discovered. Just as the detective same to a position ten or fifteen feet from where they were standing, when he was in a position to see their faces by the rays cast on ahead by the flashlight, he partly turned his ankle in a stumble on the rails, and for a moment the rays of the light were directed downward. He hobbled along, raving and cursing, for a few steps and then walked briskly on again.
But the ever-watchful eye of the searchlight no longer struck upon the wall where the boys stood, and they realized that for the present they were safe from discovery. Ventner moved on down the gangway and soon disappeared in a cross cutting which ran to the right.
"That's lucky!" exclaimed Jimmie.
"Why didn't we geezle him?" demanded Tommy.
"Because we want his help!" replied Dick.
"His help?" laughed Sandy. "Yes, you'll get his help, all right! That fellow would get up in the middle of the night to do you a dirty trick, and don't you ever forget it!"
"That's the way he's going to help us!" laughed Elmer. "He'll get up in the middle of some dark night to do us a dirty trick, and before he knows what he's about, he'll be doing us a great kindness!"
"Suppose I slip back there and see what he's doing?" asked Tommy.
"Can you find your way back to headquarters alone?" asked Sandy.
"If I can't," asserted Tommy, "I won't be sending any wireless messages to you! If you think I'm likely to get lost, Dick can go back with me. He ought to know every corner in the old mine."
"Sure he does!" laughed Jimmie. "We've been traveling this mine for a good many nights now, and we know it like a book."
So Tommy and Dick started back down the passage, the intention being to hasten to the spot where Ventner disappeared from the gangway, and then return to their companions immediately.
"We can't stay very long, you know," Tommy explained, "because you've got to have that peroxide dope put on your bites. It doesn't pay to fool with wounds of that description!"
"We'll be back to the old tool room as soon as they are!" answered
Dick. "It will take only a minute to run down there and back!"
When the boys reached the cross-cutting into which Ventner had disappeared, they saw his light some distance away. It seemed to be in one of the chambers connected with the cross-cutting.
As they looked, the detective stepped forward into the circle of illumination and began working with a pick.
"Is he always doing that when you see him?", asked Tommy.
"You bet he is!" answered Dick.
"What's he doing it for?"
"You'll have to ask Elmer that."
"But you know, don't you?"
"Of course I know, but I'm not going to tell, cause we all agreed that the story should never be told by any member of our party until Elmer gets ready to tell it. So you see you've got to wait!"
"If I had my way about it," gritted Tommy, "I'd go back there and geezle that bum detective and wall him up in a chamber until he got hungry enough to tell the story himself. Then we wouldn't have to go sneaking around the mine in order to keep out of his way!"
"That would be a foolish move," insisted Dick, "because every stroke of the pick Ventner takes he helps us along in the game we're playing."
"You're the original little mystery boy, ain't you?" said Tommy rather crossly. "All right, I'll get even."
The detective now moved farther along the cross-cutting and attacked a column of mingled rock and coal which helped to support the roof.
"The blithering idiot is going to try that trick again!" exclaimed Dick. "He'll have the whole mine down on our heads if he doesn't stop that business. He's always cutting down pillars."
"Just say the word," declared Tommy, "and I'll go stop him!"
"Let him go his own gait," replied Dick. "We'll manage to keep out of the way of the falls, and he can run his own chances."
Presently they saw the detective take something which resembled a stick of dynamite from a pocket and begin the work of setting it into the pillar. The boys moved hastily back.
"Now what do you think of that for a fool?" exclaimed Dick. "He'll have the whole mine down on our heads some day, just as sure as he's a foot high! I hope he'll be broken in two when the fall comes."
The boys stood some distance away watching the detective as he awkwardly manipulated the stick of dynamite.