This was indeed the outer chamber. And he felt where the entrance had been. It was now blocked up!
They were buried alive!
Both sunk to the ground, heart-sick and despairing.
CHAPTER VII.
NATE UPSHUR'S WORK.
On the night of the storm, Nathan Upshur sat apart from his two comrades, noiselessly smoking his pipe. That he was not in the best of humor was plainly evident.
It was only several hours since they had come on the whereabouts of Wythe and his companions, after an arduous search of several days' duration. But yet, short as was the time, Upshur had proposed a bloody plan to Chicot and Dooley—nothing less than murdering the gold-hunters, and then taking their treasure.
His ill-humor now was caused by their flat refusal to enter into any thing of the sort. They had counted the cost, and were willing to enforce their rights to a portion of the placer, if need be, by an appeal to arms, but it must be in open fight, not midnight assassination. But Upshur objected to this. It savored too much of personal danger, and that he did not greatly fancy. So he sat brooding over the matter, sour and sullen.
"It's jest this," quoth Chicot, settling the ashes in his pipe. "They must let us in on shar's. I'll tell 'em that I knew of it fust—last year, an' that I on'y j'ined the train so's to git to the place. They cain't deny it—or, ef they do, they cain't prove that I lie. Then ef they cut up rusty, let 'em. We kin make 'em sick o' the job, I reckon. But I won't hev no onderhand work—no rubbin' out in the dark—mind that, Nate Upshur."