“’Aven’t seen no mines yet,” growled Joses.
The Doctor coughed with a look of vexation upon his countenance, and, beckoning to the chief, he took his rifle. Bart rose, and leaving Joses in charge of the camp, they started for the edge of the canyon.
There was no likelihood of enemies being about the place after the event of the morning; but to the little party every shrub and bush, every stone, seemed to suggest a lurking-place for a treacherous enemy. Still they pressed on, the chief taking them, for some unknown reason, in the opposite route along beneath the perpendicular walls of the mountain, which here ran straight up from the plain.
They went by a rugged patch of broken rock, and by what seemed to be a great post stuck up there by human hands, but which proved, on a nearer approach, to be the remains of a moderate-sized tree that had been struck by lightning, the whole of the upper portion having been charred away, leaving only some ten feet standing up out of the ground.
A short distance farther on, as they were close in by the steep wall of rock, they came to a slight projection, as if a huge piece had slipped down from above, and turning sharply round this, the Beaver pointed to a narrow rift just wide enough to allow of the passage of one man at a time.
He signed to the Doctor to enter, and climbing over a few rough stones, the latter passed in and out of sight.
“Bart! quick, my boy! quick!” he said directly after, and the lad sprang in to help him, as he thought, in some perilous adventure, but only to stop short and stare at the long sloping narrow passage fringed with prickly cactus plants, which slope ran evidently up the side of the mountain.
“Why, it’s the way up to the top,” cried Bart. “I wonder who made it.”
“Dame Nature, I should say, my boy,” said the Doctor. “We must explore this. Why, what a natural fortification! One man could hold this passage against hundreds.”
Just then the chief appeared below them, for they had climbed up a few yards, and signed to them to come down.