The trap was cunningly made, must have required weeks in the excavation. At the bottom it was some ten feet wide; at the opening above his head perhaps not over eight feet. Thus its walls sloped in at the top, and he promptly saw the futility of trying to scramble out. He would have to use his sheath-knife; hack hand holds and dig places out for his feet, and at that he saw that he would have his work cut out for him.
And his rifle lay on the ground above! A sudden, disquieting vision was vividly outlined in his imagination. Suppose that the madman came now! He could stand above, and if he had nothing but stones to hurl down— The vision ended with a shudder as Sheldon remembered two bleached piles of bones.
Crouching, he leaped upward, seizing the pit’s edge. The soil crumbled, gave way. He slipped back. He heard Paula’s laughter, coolly taunting. He crouched, leaped again, furious as he found no hand hold. To try again would but be to make a fool of himself.
Among the broken branches about him he sought one strong enough to bear his weight. He stood it upright against the wall of the pit. With his knife in one hand driven into the bank, the other hand gripping the leaning branch, he sought to climb out. And then, from across the pit, at his back, Paula called sharply:
“Stop! I am going to shoot!”
He slipped back and turned toward her. She was on her knees, his rifle in her hands, the barrel looking unnaturally large as it described nervously erratic arcs and ellipses. But Paula’s eyes, looking very determined, threatened him along the sights.
With a feeling of devout thankfulness he remembered that he had taken out the clip of cartridges at the cabin. Then, with sudden sinking heart, he remembered also that before he opened the door to come out he had again slipped the clip in.
What he could not remember, to save him, was whether or not he had thrown a cartridge into the barrel!
“I’ve got one chance out of a thousand, and a cursed slim chance it is!” he told himself grimly. “She can’t miss me at this range if she tries!”
Here lay his one chance: If he had not thrown a cartridge into the barrel, and if the girl knew nothing of an automatic rifle, he might have time to get out yet before she discovered how to operate it.