“Supposing he did,” said Dick.
“It’s all right, of course—if he saw and heard everything that was done and said, heard me say that I couldn’t remember where I found the piece of quartz. But if he only saw and heard part of it.... You see what I’m getting at. We tested a piece of gold ore, and it was rich enough to make us all go bug-eyed. Gold ore, to that bunch, means the Golden Spider. Supposing he rambled off with the notion in his head that we’ve discovered the lost mine at last?”
“Humph!” Dick grunted. “In that case, I’ll probably get my shot at one or two of ’em sooner than I expected to. Got Lop-Ear cinched, Larry? All right; let’s go.”
The distance up to the ravine of the ice cave proved to be less than they thought it was and it was soon traversed. Upon reaching the site of the former camp they found that a curious change had taken place in the ravine bottom. The round hole melted by the heat of their camp-fire was very considerably enlarged, not sidewise, but lengthwise, and the ice had disappeared—thawed away completely, showing the bare rock walls of a narrow crevice on either side, though there was still a miniature torrent racing along at the bottom of the crack.
By reason of these changes it was no longer necessary to use the rope as a means of descent into the depths. At its up-mountain end the ice-freed crevice ran out in a series of rude, stair-like steps, down which it was easy to scramble. It was Dick who led the way into the cave, after they had unloaded the burros and picketed them.
“Gee! all my pretty ice stalactites are melted and gone,” he lamented; and then: “Whew! feel that current of warm air, will you? No wonder the ice has disappeared. Where do you suppose the warm wind is coming from?”
His assertion concerning the disappearance of the ice decorations was verified when they got far enough down to get a glimpse into the great chamber he had seen and tried to describe after his two companions had hauled him out of the well hole at the end of the picket rope. There was no ice to be seen anywhere, though the walls were still wet in spots as from some melting reservoir overhead.
Larry lighted a candle and began to examine the walls of the chamber, and Dick laughed.
“Once a prospector, always a prospector,” he said jokingly. “Expecting to find a bonanza down here, old scout?”
“Not quite,” Larry answered. “I was just wondering if this is a water-cut canyon—or was once, before it got filled up and covered over.”