“Wait,” says Batten to me, “till we get the engine out, and we’ll look after you.”
“I won’t be here,” says I. “Good-by!”
I started to get up and go away from there, but Mark whispers: “Wait a minute. Don’t run yet.”
Batten and Bill puffed and hauled and sweated rolling the stone out of the way. It took them five minutes to make a clear way, and you’d better believe it was no easy job. All tired out as they were, they rushed into the cave without waiting to rest. I heard Mark make a funny noise in his throat, but his face was sober as a Sunday-school superintendent’s.
I looked in after the men. Batten jumped for the covered engine and jerked the sheet off. Well, sir, I just fell backward onto the sand. I couldn’t believe what I saw, for under the sheet was nothing in the world but a heap of dry boughs. The engine was gone!
Batten and Bill stood like they were frozen solid, their mouths open. Then Batten made a noise that sounded between a roar and a growl and kicked the brush-pile.
“It ain’t there,” says Bill.
Batten rushed out of the cave, almost bumping his head on the roof, and pounced on me. He took me by the collar and shook me. “Where is it?” he yelled. “Where is it?”
I felt of my neck to see if it was all there, and then answered him, sort of strangled:
“I dunno. I thought it was there.”