“It must still be pretty dark outside,” Jack remarked, mystified because no daylight filtered down. “A fellow can’t see an inch ahead of his face.”
He groped on up the rough steps in the rock. But where the exit to the mine should have been, his hand encountered first a mass of brush, and then solid rock.
“Something’s wrong!” he muttered. “This can’t be the way we came.”
“Sure, it is,” Warner insisted, pressing close behind him. “This mine is a simple affair. No offshoots. Here, let me have a look.”
His light beam swept the mine exit.
Both the rancher and Jack drew in their breath sharply.
The opening through which they had entered a few minutes before was now blocked. They were trapped in the mine!
Chapter 23
ESCAPE
Jack’s first thought was that a rock slide had dammed up the mine entrance. Sober reflection, however, told him that such was not the case.
Obviously, someone had quietly shoved a great boulder across the narrow opening.