“We’ll soon find out,” said Jerry.
Through the rain, which seemed to come down harder than ever, [they rode over] the edge of a little hill on the trail until they were [in front of the cave] in which Ned had taken shelter.
“Come on in—it’s fine!” cried Ned.
Tinny looked about before he would permit this, however. He wanted to see if his theory would prove, and he wanted to make sure that it would be safe.
“That’s what happened here,” he said. “There’s been a landslide within the last day or two. It carried away the dirt, rock and trees and bushes that were in front of the entrance to this cave. I don’t believe any one knew of its existence before.”
“I saw it, all of a sudden, as I was riding along,” explained Ned, as his companions rode in—for the entrance was high enough to permit this, after Mallison had signified that it seemed safe enough. “I thought this was one of the shelter places you spoke of, Tinny, and I supposed you were right behind me.”
“No,” said the mine owner, “I never knew about this. It’s a new one to me. Where I thought we could get shelter is at the old cabin less than a mile from here. But this will do very well—better in fact. There’s no danger from lightning in here.”
As he spoke there was another flash, like the terrifying ones that had snapped about before the rain came, and a great crash of thunder reverberated down the mountain slopes.
“It’s doing its best to get at us, though,” remarked Jerry, as he slid out of the rain-soaked saddle, an example followed by the others.
“It can’t get in here,” chuckled Ned. “Say, isn’t this a great place, though? It’s a made-to-order barn, house and everything. Get the saddles off and we can build a fire. There’s a lot of dry wood.” He indicated some off to one side. Just enough of the fast-disappearing daylight, gloomy as it was, remained to show the heap of wood. It seemed to have been deposited there by some subsiding flood, and when the travelers took out their flashlights and pressed the switches, in the gleams it could be seen that once the cave had held water. The marks of the different depths, or levels, were visible on the rocky walls.