Conning the situation, he realized that the most important feature was saving matches, of which he had very few. Therefore he groped until he had located bar, gun, and lantern; gathered them up, turned carefully, and felt his way back by keeping an elbow against the rough wall of the false passage. When the stone ended he halted again, laid down everything, lit another fire-stick, and, carefully shielding the flame from draught, advanced to the left. As he walked he counted his steps.
Three matches in turn burned out. The third, however, brought him within sight of a white splotch several feet to his left. The fourth proved it to be his pointer.
He now had only two matches left. But he knew the number of steps, including the turn he had made toward his handkerchief: he had the vague crevice-lights to aid his calculations for the return, and he had approximately the right direction in mind. Deducting from his total count the few steps taken on the last angle, and concentrating every sense into the task of traveling straight, he marched back through the darkness. So true was his course that with the last step his foot struck the invisible lantern.
Once more loaded, he sought the exit, saving both matches. But his steps were a trifle shorter now that he was burdened, and he also strayed a little from his line. It took both matches to set him right at the end; the second was almost out before he could even see the white, and before he could reach the marked spot the light was gone. However, he found the opening in the wall; and when he went groping along the passage he had retrieved his handkerchief. The only traces of his visit now were the last two match-butts, which he had had to drop.
The wan light of day had seldom been so welcome as when, after a scraping, stumbling journey, he emerged at length at the crude staircase. With a long breath of relief, he clambered up to the step whereon he had found the lantern. There he replaced the grimy light-giver on the exact spot where he had discovered it. On upward he continued, and out from under the tilted lid he crept.
No new sign of human presence was visible outside. He strode around the nearest bowlder. Behind its sheltering bulk he laid down his bar of loot and began close inspection of it.
With his clasp-knife he scraped away an accumulation of dark sediment, baring a narrow strip of the true metal. From the clean space shone a dull silvery gleam.
“By thunder!” he breathed. “Sure as shooting, it’s—— But wait, now. Let’s see.”
He dug the point of the strong blade into the metal. Turning it, he easily cut out a conical chunk. After scanning it an instant, he pressed his thumb-nail down on one circular edge. The nail bit out a clean gouge. For a couple of seconds more he stared at the little plug of metal, at his knife-blade, at his nail and the end of his thumb. Then he lifted his head and laughed—silently, but so heartily that tears came to his eyes.
He knew now what it was that the long-dead Ninety-Nine had dug from the bowels of that shadowy cavern; what it was that the Indian who sought the aid of old Elias Fox had borne away from the mine; what the old man’s sly glimpse had depicted as virgin silver, and what his son and grandsons since had sought until crushing doom annihilated one of them. His laughter ended as he eyed the great block whose fall from above had pried up the stone trap-door. That might be the very mass which had hurtled down on Will Fox. Under it even now might be lying his splintered bones.