"I reckon you told the truth when you said that," admitted the other, grasping the still serious nature of their predicament. "Why, we might start another slide on the jump! Some of these boulders seem to be set on a pivot and the least shove would set 'em rolling, knocking others off their perch, and—Frank! what's that long split off there that looks as if the face of the rocks had been burst open?"
"Just what happened here, Lanky; but not with this slide. It might be a thousand, or ten thousand, years ago when that big fissure was made. Let's crawl over that way and investigate."
"Well, I'm going to be prepared for anything," ventured the other. "I want to say that we were some lucky not to lose our guns when coming down on that toboggan slide. Sometimes these black-looking caves are dens for wild animals."
"All right," said Frank quickly. "Keep on your guard, then. But you mustn't forget we're out skirmishing for a cave; and on that account we ought to look this one over."
A brief investigation convinced the two boys that it was too big an undertaking for them to handle that afternoon.
"This is as good a place for us to camp in as any," suggested Frank. "If we're of the same mind in the morning, why, we'll put in some work here. I don't know just why I should feel that way, but some sort of hunch seems to tell me we'll find something worth our while if we go far enough."
"Wow! but it's as black as my pocket inside there, Frank." As he said this Lanky, on hands and knees, was staring past the guardian jaws of rock into the ugly looking fissure.
"That's why we'll have to wait for morning before we try to explore what lies inside the mountain," replied Frank.
"You mean we'll have to lay in some torches, so as to see our way—is that the idea, Frank?"
"A whole lot of faggots that will burn, but not too fast," the other answered, having already mapped out this part of the scheme. "You can understand what a pickle we'd be up against, wandering around in an unknown cavern with our last torch flickering to its wind-up."