For an instant—as well they might have been—the two onlookers were fairly paralyzed with amazement. The occurrence seemed to be without natural explanation. But an investigation by Pete, crawling on his hands and knees while he made it, soon revealed the nature of the device which, as we know, was nothing more nor less than a balanced trap-door of stone. An unusual weight placed upon one end of it instantly tilted it and projected whatever was on it upon the staircase below.
The professor, who recalled having read of such devices in other dwelling-places of ancient communities, was at first for following the boys into the unknown interior of the mesa, but before any move could be made in that direction, one of the newly-arrived party shoved his face over the top of the hollow altar in a spirit of investigation. He fell back with a yell, crying out that there were spirits within it, as his eyes encountered the crouching forms of its two occupants.
"What's the matter, you fool?" demanded Ramon himself, who happened to be close at hand.
"Oh, the spirits! The spirits of the hollow altar!" howled the Mexican in abject terror, his knees knocking together and his face taking on a sickly pallor.
"Hey! What's that the crazy galoot's after saying?"
The question came from a thickset man, of about middle age, upon whose upper lip bristled a fringe of reddish hair. His eyes were blue, narrow and evil, and his face was scarred in half a dozen places.
"Why, Hickey, my amigo, he says that the place is haunted," laughed Ramon.
The man addressed as Hickey turned to his two companions, one of whom was a tall, lanky chap, with straggly black hair, and bristly, unshaven chin. The other was a short, fat, rather good-natured looking little man, whose truculent chin, however, gave the lie to his incessant smile. Somehow, you felt, after a lengthy inspection of this latter, that he was by no means the amiable personage his fixed smile seemed to indicate. Small wonder, considering that his smile was fixed upon his face by reason of an old knife wound, which, in severing some facial muscles, had drawn up the corners of his mouth into a perpetual grin.
"Hullo! Here's Rafter and Con Divver!" exclaimed the bristly-moustached one. "Well, fellows, what d'ye think of this here country?"
"All right, as fur as we've gone," grunted the lanky man, "but I'm itching to git across the border and git my paws on some of that gold."