“They were two of our own fellows,” he told himself. He knew he had no enemies among the engineers, and his mind at once reverted to Lieutenant Gebauer and Nat Poole. Would they be mean enough to make such an attack?
“It doesn’t seem possible! And yet, if they didn’t do it, who did?” was our hero’s thought.
But now was no time for further speculation on the subject. Dave felt that he must find out where he was and do what he could to get back to the engineers’ quarters. He did not know how long he had been unconscious, but thought it must have been for some time, possibly an hour or two.
He lay on some sloping rocks, and it was not without considerable difficulty that he arose to his feet. As he did this he felt in his pocket for Captain Obray’s notebook and discovered that it was gone.
“I remember now I didn’t have time to pick it up,” he told himself. “Hang the luck, anyway! If those fellows went off with that notebook, what will the captain say? He told me it was very valuable. I suppose it must have some of our specifications in it.”
Dave had brought neither a weapon nor a pocket flashlight with him. He, however, had a waterproof match-safe, and this was about half full of matches. Bringing one of these forth, he struck it on the rocks with care, and then, as the small light flared up, he took a look at his surroundings.
He was in a long, low passageway of the abandoned mines. To one side of him was a V-shaped opening. One passageway of this opening was very rocky and at one point had a sudden descent of ten or twelve feet. The other passageway sloped upward at considerable less of an angle.
“I guess I must have come down that passageway on the right,” he reasoned, “because if I had come down the other way more than likely I would have broken my neck.”
Dave was mistaken in his reasoning, and that mistake cost him dear, as we shall presently see. He had really come down the rougher way of the two, and that he had not lost his life in the fall was certainly miraculous.
The young lieutenant counted his matches and found he had seven left.