“When I get back to camp, we’ll start for the village to notify the authorities. They may organize a search, though I haven’t much hope.”
“Rhodes is the key to the whole situation,” Ken insisted. “If only we could force him to talk—”
“That’s a forlorn hope too, I’m afraid,” the Scout leader answered. “If we’d found this old mine, we might have used our knowledge as a leverage. Having failed, I don’t see what we can do.”
After hacking awhile at the outcropping of rock, Jack walked down to the river’s edge. Foam was back-washing against the boulders and the current was very swift.
He stood there a moment, fascinated by the speed of the wild torrent. Intending to rejoin his friends, he chose a way different from the one he had come. Soon he regretted it, finding himself in a mat of dense vegetation.
As he hacked a path, he felt his footing give beneath him. Unexpectedly, the floor of creepers dissolved.
Down he plunged, uttering a terrified shriek as he fell!
Jack struck solid earth some distance below. Stunned by the suddenness of the fall as well as the impact, he lay for a moment, unable to move.
Then gingerly, he sat up. No bones had been broken. He felt for his flashlight and was relieved to discover it intact.
The beam of light disclosed that he had fallen into a cave-like hole perhaps ten feet below the surface of the ridge above.