“Dead,” Johnny whispered to himself as he turned away, “but how?”
Half way to the entrance, Johnny paused, put his hand on his companion’s arm, then stood in the attitude of listening. He seemed to feel rather than hear an almost undetectable shudder that set the air about them and the rock beneath their feet to vibrating.
“What is it?” whispered Johnny.
“I don’t know,” said his companion, and there was a noticeable tremor in his voice.
They were destined to feel that earth-tremble many times before they solved the mystery of the mine.
CHAPTER II
“FIFTEEN MEN ON THE DEAD MAN’S CHEST”
The two men who, with the young doctor, accompanied Johnny and Pant back to the mine were old friends of other days, David Tower and Jarvis, one-time skipper and engineer of the submarine in that remarkable race beneath the ice and through the air told about in our second book, “Lost in the Air.” Like all worthy seamen, they had found that money “burned holes in their pockets,” and before six months had passed their share of the prize money had dwindled to such a meager sum that the fitting out of a private expedition to go north in search of the fabled City of Gold, the gleam of whose domes they had glimpsed, was not to be thought of. When, therefore, they had discovered that men were being signed for a trip to Arctic Russia with the well-known feather-weight champion boxer, Johnny Thompson, at its head, they hastened to put their names on the “dotted line.” And here they were, two of Johnny’s most valued men.