“Hardly. It’s a safe guess he wouldn’t leave the horses.”
“Then it must have been Lawless and his men?”
“That’s the way I figure it.”
“If that’s the case, it naturally follows that the outlaws have some way of getting to the surface, aside from using this shaft?”
“That’s right, pard. Lawless and his men appear to have everything their own way. They can come and go as they please, and they can dodge in on us and dodge away again without leaving any clue. If you were on the surface, the loss of the rope wouldn’t bother me very much. I have just found out what I was going up to discover. There is a concealed shaft, and the outlaws had to make use of it in order to get to the top of the ore-dump and pull up that rope.”
“You think they knew I was down here?”
“It’s an easy guess. Now that we’re likely to have to stay down here for a while, we had better make ourselves as secure as possible. The safest place in the mine, it strikes me, is that ‘drift’ where Wild Bill found the gold. We’ll carry our grub-sacks and water-cans in there, then put out the light, lay low, and wait for developments. We’ll have plenty of them, if I’m any prophet. I never saw such a place for things to happen.”
While Dell held the torch, Buffalo Bill picked up some of the canteens and provision-bags and carried them into the “drift.” A few canteens were left in the level, and Dell went back for them.
The scout, in the dark end of the short passage, was stowing away the bags and canteens, when he heard an unusual sound just beyond the opening leading into the “drift.” He glanced up and stared toward the place where Dell was standing with the torch.
The unexpected had happened, just as the scout had surmised it would, but nevertheless he was mightily taken aback by what he saw.