“I-I-I think I’ll stay,” stammered Indian, who was really scared to death at the mere thought of the cave. “I-I’m v-very m-m-much interested.”
But the dodge didn’t “go.” Poor Indian was dragged off, protesting at the outrage, and the solemn Parson was left alone with his lantern and his snake.
“I’ll join you later,” he called, and then settled himself into a meditative pose, à la Hamlet. His friends’ footsteps died away in the distance and he was left in silence to observe and study that “process of deglutition.”
We must follow the plebes, in the meanwhile. A few minutes later they reached the cave, where momentous things were destined to occur.
CHAPTER XVIII.
A MOMENT OF DEADLY PERIL.
You can have no idea what a forbidding task it was—entering that cavern. The plebes only began to realize it when they got to the place. Why the very sight of that yawning, black hole made them shiver! Indian was so overcome that he had to sit down and fan himself; at the same time he raised his “stroke” to forty-two.
The six gazed up at the entrance, which it will be remembered was an opening some three feet square up in the side of the cliff.
A picture rose up before them—the picture of the horrified and terror-stricken yearlings tumbling out through that hole. At the same time the yells and cries for help seemed to echo yet. The plebes trembled.
Fortunately the bold Texan was along, which precluded all possibility of hesitation. It was all very well for tenderfeet to be frightened! (Texas didn’t know whether that word should be tenderfoots or tenderfeet; at any rate, it immediately reminded Dewey of the story of the English footman who introduced into a London drawing-room, “b’gee, Sir Thomas Foote, and the Misses Feet.”)