Clutching the table, swaying, but with lips tightly pressed together and teeth clenched, Frank made his way to the microphone. Holding the headpiece to his ear, he set his lips to the telephone instrument and called:
"Jack, Jack, you there?"
"Yes, yes," came back the anxious reply. "What happened?"
"It's all right, Jack. Go ahead. I licked—him."
The headpiece fell from his grasp. Frank sank to the floor.
It was there a moment later that Roy Stone found him, fallen in a heap across the body of the Mexican. Both were unconscious.
Stone was shaky himself. His battle with Von Arnheim had been a severe one, and the wound in his shoulder had started bleeding again. But as his gaze took in the situation, he turned to Tom Bodine, whose bonds he had cut on his way through the outer cave, and said in a tone of warmest admiration:
"Some boy."