All the time he kept staring upward at the smoke.
Suddenly he stopped.
He had found the place where the smoke escaped!
It was directly over his head, a long crack across the roof, scarcely wider than a man's hand. Into this the smoke was pouring in the same slow, deliberate manner.
He stared at that crack in bitter, heart-crushed disappointment.
Smoke might escape through that narrow fissure, but a human being—never!
The agony of disappointment that he felt nearly robbed him of his strength and caused him to collapse. He fell back against the wall, a groan coming from his parched throat.
"No chance!" he said hoarsely. "Ridgeway was right! We were both doomed when the landslide came! But he is the better off, for his agony is over!"
Then he thought of his pistol. As a last resort he could blow out his brains and have it ended.
He thrust the deadly knife back into the bosom of his shirt, straightened up, and thrust his fingers into the crack. He tried to force his hand through, to reach up appealingly to the free world far above.