So they went on. But when Uncle Tod himself slipped over a small ledge, turning on his ankle with force enough to make him limp, and when Chot just saved himself from plunging into another hole, Uncle Tod said:
“I’m through! I’m going to give up!”
“What?” cried Rick. “Why, we haven’t explored half the tunnel yet!”
“Yes we have,” was the answer. “There’s the end now! It is shorter than I thought, and there isn’t a sign of water. I’m through I tell you. Might as well give up the mine.”
“What do you mean—the end of the tunnel?” asked Rick.
In answer his uncle pointed to the right and the boys could see daylight glimmering where, before, only invisible blackness had been ahead of them.
What did it mean?
CHAPTER XVI
RICK DRAWS SOMETHING
“Yes, boys,” went on Uncle Tod, “it looks as though we had played the game out. There’s the end of the tunnel—it’s much shorter than I ever thought, for Sam and I never came this far before—and we haven’t seen a drop of water the whole length.”
They had walked to where daylight gleamed and found that they could pass out of the tunnel into the open. They emerged at the side of a hill, very much the same sort of hill that was behind the cabin at the mine camp. Below them lay the valley, winding off to the east and west—a deserted desolate valley, dotted here and there, perhaps, with the camps of hopeful miners, but which camps were too small to be seen amid the trees and bushes.