“Estimated,” laughed Frank.
“Suppose they turn out to be only glass,” put in the skeptical Billy, on whom Frank’s conservative manner had had its effect.
For reply the boy leader of the little train that had unveiled what turned out afterward to be the portal to the Toltec mines gave one of the stones a hard crack with the blunt side of his hatchet head.
“Not much glass about that, I should say,” he laughed as he held it up and showed that its surface was as unmarred by the blow as if it had been a diamond.
The boys were busy congratulating themselves on their finds and poking about the mouth of the new tunnel that opened its blackness before them that till now they had given no attention to one most important thing—how were they going to get back?
The question was propounded by Frank who was badly worried over the problem. The first flush of the excitement of estimating the value of their discovery and speculating on what lay before them had quite obliterated for the time the consideration of this important matter. It was then with a serious voice that he turned to his young followers and asked:
“How about getting back?”
The idea of the serpent fresh in their minds the notion of recrossing the chasm on the swinging-chain appealed to none of the boys; but, as it did not seem probable there was any other means of exit—at least that they were likely to discover—it was self-evident that they would be compelled to take the desperate chance or starve to death in the blackness of the Toltec caves.
The solution of the problem came with a sharp shock to all of them.
There was no way of getting back!