“No, a plan. A great plan! Those greasers outside are all half frightened out of their lives already. We’ll finish the job!”
“How?” the question came in chorus.
“We’ll smear our faces with that phosphorus from the matches, and then rush out looking like a lot of green ghosts. If that won’t stampede them, we’ll have to fight. We can’t stay mewed up in here.”
“By hookey, boy, you’ve got it all right!” cried Pete in a voice vibrant with excitement. “We’ll try it. As you say, we can’t stop hyar and starve, and that’s what it amounts to if we don’t git out.”
“So it’s scare them or fight them,” said Ralph.
“That is, with the odds in favor of the former,” laughed Jack.
Each of the party wet his face with water from the canteen, and then rubbed the matches over his features till they glared greenly in the darkness with a truly terrifying expression. Then they gave their hands similar treatment.
“Gee, I’ll bet I’d be scared of myself if I could see myself,” laughed Ralph, “you fellows look hideous enough to frighten a pack of brass monkeys.”
“Now to see if it will work on those other monkeys outside,” said Jack.
In single file, Pete first, Jack second, and the others coming behind, they softly approached the end of the passage. In the starlight they could see the dark forms of the sentries huddled pretty close together, for companionship doubtless.