“At one side of the shaft, directly under this room.”
“But where did they dump the rock and gravel that came out of those passages?” Dick asked incredulously. “It didn’t just disappear, did it? Tons and tons of earth and rock must have been moved in order to get the gold.”
“I can’t explain it,” Sandy admitted, somewhat defiantly. “All I know is that it was moved somewhere. The real mine is down there.”
“We’ll start exploring it at once,” Dick decided. “I’ll make some sort of miner’s lamp and we’ll all go down. What do you say?”
A fever of excitement had seized upon them. Hunger and weariness, the fear of pursuit—everything was forgotten in the obsession of the moment. Sandy moved about with an accustomed lightness in his step; Dick had become over-eager and impatient. Of the three, Toma alone remained unshaken and indifferent.
“Why you so hurry go see mine?” he demanded of Dick, during a lull in their preparations. “You think mine run away, eh?”
“Why, no.”
“How you feel if Indian come pretty soon an’ no ready for him?”
“What’s that?”
“Indian pretty sure come bye-’n’-bye.”