As he started to strike her with his quirt she turned over and began crawling on hands and knees.
“Oh, if only Dr. Blackwell or someone heard those rocks and would come to our rescue,” she thought. “My crawling this way will delay us some. I wish, though, that I dared tell Florence that I’m not hurt. She’s so worried because she thinks I’ve really sprained my ankle.”
Every few moments she kept looking back toward the boss as an excuse to get a view of the valley.
“Surely, if Dr. Blackwell’s down there and heard all that noise, he’d look up here and see us,” she thought. “If I don’t see somebody soon, I’ll risk knocking some more stones over.” She slowed her crawling pace.
“Mas pronto!” came the growling command, then she felt a sharp lick across her back. Only her thick sweater kept her from being cut by the boss’s quirt.
In spite of this, she ventured to look around again a few moments later. To her unbounded relief she caught a glimpse of three men on horses riding rapidly toward the foot of the trail. They were not dressed like Indians, she noticed. The rider ahead looked as if he might be Dr. Blackwell. Oh, if only he were! If he could only get to them right away. “That black hole up ahead on the path—that must be the opening to the mine,” she thought.
Just then Carlitos exclaimed in a frightened voice, “La mina [The mine]!”
Terrified at the sight of this black yawning hole so close above them, Jo Ann cried out frantically, “Florence, stop! Don’t go any farther.”
At her sharp command Florence halted, white-faced and trembling. The next instant she reached out to catch hold of Carlitos.
The boss burst forth in such a rapid flow of Spanish that neither one of the girls could understand a word. His face was so distorted with rage that Florence and Carlitos huddled together against the rocky wall, frozen with fear.