Dorothy held up her hand again, gesturing for silence. Then, before Tavia knew what she was up to, Dorothy flung herself face down upon the ground and with infinite caution made her way, eel-like, toward a huge rock that jutted out from the mountainside.
Wondering, Tavia followed her example.
Dorothy did not increase her speed even when a sharp cry rang out, shattering the silence with breath-taking abruptness.
“I won’t do it—you—you—” came a boy’s voice, broken and furious. “You wouldn’t try to make me do a thing like that if you weren’t a lot of cowards! You wait till I tell Garry! You just wait!”
“Oh, we’ll wait all right, kid.”
The girls were near enough now to hear the sneering words, although the tone was still carefully lowered.
The boy tried to answer, but a heavy hand across his mouth strangled the defiance.
Dorothy had reached the jutting, out-flung rock and had solved the mystery of the mountain.
For the rock served as a gigantic door, almost blocking up the entrance of a cave that seemed to extend far into the mountain. From where she and Tavia had stood when Joe’s desperate cry first reached their ears, the rock entirely concealed the entrance to the cave.
A most excellent retreat and one admirably adapted to the needs of Larrimer and his gang!