In the moonlight the opening underground looked quite forbidding, and Dave did not venture very far into it. He did, however, examine the ground as closely as possible to see if he could find any recent footprints. But nothing of the sort came to light. Evidently no one had been in that vicinity since the last rain, which had occurred more than a week before.
As our hero was bending over to make sure that there were no traces of footsteps around this entrance to the abandoned mines, the notebook which Captain Obray had entrusted to him slipped from his pocket, falling between some of the loose rocks.
“Hello! it won’t do for me to lose that notebook,” Dave told himself. “I should have delivered it before I went on this walk.”
Dave had just straightened up with the notebook in his hand when he suddenly became aware of two figures close behind him. Each was armed with a heavy stick, and before he could make a move to defend himself he received a stinging blow on the head. He gave a cry of pain, and then two other blows descended upon him and he knew no more.
Having assaulted him in such a dastardly fashion, Gebauer and Nat stood over their victim for several seconds expecting him to make some sort of move. But as he did not, the youth from Crumville became alarmed.
“Gee! you don’t suppose we knocked him out, do you?” he whispered hoarsely.
“Certainly not,” answered Gebauer coolly. “He’s partly senseless, that’s all. He’ll come around presently.”
“That was an awful crack you gave him on the head!”
“I didn’t hit him any harder than you did, Nat.”
“You did so! I only gave him a slight tap, and you hit him hard twice.”