“A rattler?” cried Chris.
“I’m not sure, but I saw something gliding along, and I fired.”
“Good boy! Quite right! Sharp’s the word. But I say, what a smother you’ve made. Get in another cartridge.”
Click! went Ned’s piece as he closed the breech.
“If that was a rattler,” said Griggs coolly, “seems as if it was just as well that I didn’t go down last night.”
“And this morning too,” said Chris. “Why, there may be quite a nest of the brutes down there.”
“P’r’aps so. But if there is it must have made some of them sneeze when all that dust went down with a rush yesterday.”
Just then Wilton leaned in at the window-opening of the cell where the doctor and Bourne were examining a carefully-smoothed, elliptical, cell-like stone with a hole through the thickest part as if for holding a wooden handle.
“What have you found?” he said.
“A stone battle-axe, without doubt.”