Still keeping his thoughts to himself, the scout whirled away from the shaft and went into the “drift.” The cross-section dimensions of the “drift” were the same as those of the main level, but it was scarcely more than fifteen feet long.
A débris of broken stone littered the floor of the “drift,” but the scout was not long in discovering that his old pard was not there.
Setting the candle down on a rock, he made a trumpet of his hands.
“Nomad!” he roared, at the top of his voice.
The echoes boomed through the underground galleries, but echoes alone answered the scout’s call.
“I’ll give it up,” said Buffalo Bill, dropping down on the stone beside the candle. “Nick isn’t in the mine, that’s sure.”
“And he didn’t get out of the mine through the shaft,” observed Wild Bill. “There may be an air-shaft somewhere that we don’t know anything about. If Nomad found such a shaft, it would be easy for him to give us the slip.”
“There isn’t such a shaft!” declared the scout. “Even if there was, Hickok, why should Nick give us the slip?”
“He wouldn’t want to, of course; but he was in the mine one minute, and out of it the next. He met with foul play, and it was of the mighty sudden kind. Lawless is back of it—that goes without saying.”
“I presume you are right,” said the scout, “and if you are right, Hickok, there’s more to this mine than we have yet begun to discover.”