Jimmie sniffed elaborately and hit Ned a resounding whack on the back. Then he sat down on the bottom of the passage.
“Say, Ned, look here!” he said. “When we got into this scrape, we didn’t look for any old Franciscan monks to help us out, did we? Two or three hundred years ago, when they dug this passage through the rock, they hadn’t any idea they were digging it for us, had they?”
“This is a mysterious world,” Ned answered. “It seems to be unnecessary for us to plan any mode of escape. The wise old chap who formed the Franciscan order in Europe, hundreds of years ago, prepared the way of escape for us!”
“That’s what he did!” answered Jimmie. “And I wish he had gone a little farther and prepared a good fat meat pie for us.”
“Jimmie,” Ned chuckled, “some day you’ll get into a corner where you won’t get anything to eat for a week. I never knew a boy who thought so much of his stomach as you do!”
“May the day be long delayed!” laughed Jimmie.
“Well, crawl along!” Ned advised, “and I’ll see if I can get this slab of stone you pushed out back in its place.”
It was by no means a difficult task to replace the stone, as it was thin and had been nicely fitted into the opening. In a short time the boys, proceeding mostly on their hands and knees, came to the end of the tunnel and looked out over a valley tucked in between two great summits.
The snow-line was not far away and the air was cold, notwithstanding the direct rays of the sun.
There was no one in sight, no moving object anywhere, as the boys paused at the mouth of the passage and gazed about. Judging from the location of the sun, they were looking straight west.