He turned away and picked up a book, with a gesture signifying that he had finished.
Nat's lips moved. He was about to speak, but in the extremity of his peril his tongue fairly clove to the roof of his mouth. To be left to the tender mercies of Dayton! That was indeed a fate that might have made a more experienced adventurer than Nat tremble. The boy quickly overcame his passing alarm, however, and the next moment Manuello was conducting him down the passage toward what Nat supposed must be the west cell.
Before a stout oaken door, studded with iron bolts, the evil-visaged Mexican paused, and diving into his pocket produced a key. Inserting this in a well-oiled lock, he swung back the portal and disclosed a rock-walled room about twelve feet square. This, then, was the west cell. Any hope that Nat might have cherished of escaping, vanished as he saw the place. It was, apparently, cut out of solid rock. It would have taken a gang of men armed with dynamite and tools many years to have worked their way out. The door, too, now that it was open, was seen to be a massive affair, formed of several layers of oak bolted together till it was a foot thick. Great steel hinges, driven firmly into the wall, held it in place and on the outside, as an additional security to the lock, was a heavy sliding bolt of steel.
Manuello gave Nat a shove and the boy half stumbled forward into the place.
The next minute the door closed with a harsh clamor, and he was alone. So utterly stunned was he by his fate that for some minutes Nat simply stood still in the centre of the place, not moving an inch. But presently he collected his faculties, and his first care was to cast himself loose from the rawhide rope the Mexican had enveloped him in. This done, he felt easier, and was about to begin an inspection of the place when a small wicket, not more than six inches square, in the upper part of the door opened, and a hand holding a tin jug of water was poked through. Nat seized the receptacle eagerly, and while he was draining it the same hand once more appeared, this time with a loaf of bread and a hunk of dried deer meat.
Nat's hunger was as keen as his thirst, and wisely deciding that better thinking can be done on a full stomach than on an empty one, he speedily demolished the provender. So utterly hopeless did the outlook seem that many a boy in Nat's position would have thrown himself on the cell floor and awaited the coming of his fate. Not so with Nat. He had taken for his motto, "While there is life there is hope," although it must be confessed that even he felt a sinking of the heart as he thought over his position. Guided by the light that came into the cell through the small wicket, the boy began groping about him and beating on the wall. For an hour or more he kept this up, till his hands were raw and bleeding from his exertions. It appeared to him that he had pounded every foot of rock in the place, in the hope of finding some hollow spot, but to no avail. The place was as solid as a safety vault.
Giving way to real despair at last, even the gritty boy owned himself beaten. Sinking his face in his hands he collapsed upon the cell floor. As he did so voices sounded in the corridor. One of them Nat recognized with a thrill of apprehension, as Dayton's.