"I guess I can come a little nearer finding out," exclaimed Ned finally to the others in a whisper.
Alan did not know what he meant, but he resumed his place at the wheel. Ned had disappeared in the dark.
"Where are you, Ned?" asked Alan anxiously at last.
The answer came from beneath the car.
"Only down here, but I'm going lower," Ned replied, again in a whisper. "Be ready with that ballast."
A perspiration of fear broke out on Alan's body. He sprang to the open trap door.
Just discernible in the darkness was Ned's slowly retreating form.
He was climbing down the twenty-five-foot rope landing ladder with only his own strong grip and the spruce rungs to save him from death.
There was nothing to be said or done. Bob did not know what was going on below, but he knew that he had a task set for him, and in the long silence that followed while the Cibola settled lower and lower and drifted on and on in the dark he stood, knife in hand, at the ballast bags.