"Don't speak about it!" exclaimed Julian, who wondered what he should do if Jack was taken away from him. "I need somebody to grumble at me, and you will do as well as anybody. Are you not going to put on another shirt?"
"Not much, I ain't. Maybe I did not kill that animal, whatever it was and he will come for me again. Now, you hold up and let me go," said Jack, when he saw Julian place one foot in the bucket."
"I am a better shot than you are, and if I pull on one of those ghosts you will see him drop," returned Julian, drawing the other foot in. "Take hold of the windlass and let me down easy. If I halloo, you must lose no time in hauling me up."
Jack was obliged to submit to this arrangement, and he carefully lowered Julian out of sight. When the bucket stopped he seized the rope, and in a moment more stood beside him.
"I am glad it is animals that are interfering with us, for I am not at all afraid of them," declared Jack. "Now, where is that other sound you heard?"
The question had hardly been formed on Jack's lips when that sound came to their ears—not faint and far off, as was the one that caused Julian to handle his revolver, but louder and clearer, as though the animal that made it was close upon them. Sometimes they thought it was in front, and they held their revolvers ready to shoot at a moment's warning, and then, again, it sounded behind them; and in a second more it appeared as if the rocks on each side of them concealed the enemy that was uttering those startling sounds.
"It is the echo—that's what it is," said Julian. "There is only one animal in here, and we can't shoot him any too quick."
Julian, aided by his lamp, led the way cautiously along the subterranean passage, which would have been level but for the carelessness or haste of the men who had worked the pit before them, peering into every little cavity he saw, until at last he stopped suddenly and pointed his revolver at something that lay upon the floor.
"What is it, Julian?" whispered Jack, pressing eagerly to his side.
"Well, sir, you have done it now," answered Julian, bending over and examining the animal as well as he could by the light of his lamp. "This is the thing that frightened the other two men away."