Feeling certain he was now close to the surface, he continued to work with renewed vigor.
"At last!"
The scout was right. The knife had found the outer air, and a dim, uncertain light struck down upon the hero of the plains.
It did not take long to enlarge the opening sufficiently to admit the passage of Pawnee Brown's body.
He leaped out among a number of bushes and stretched himself.
Having brushed the dirt from his wet clothing, he "located himself," as he put it, and started up a hill to the entrance to the Devil's Chimney.
He was on the side opposite to that from which he had descended, and, in order to get over, had to make a wide detour through some brush and small timber.
This accomplished, he hurried to where he had left Bonnie Bird tethered.
As the reader knows, the beautiful mare was gone, and had been for some time.
"I suppose that young Arbuckle took her," he mused. "But, if so, why doesn't he come back here with her?"