The aged volcanologist shook his head. The yellow powder was something beyond his ken.
"I have been poking around volcanos all my life," he said, "and I have seen some queer things come out of the ground—but nothing like that."
Dr. Bird poked tentatively at the substance for a moment, his brow furrowed in lines of thought. He suddenly threw back his shoulders in a gesture of decision.
"Send a gang of excavators down here," he cried. "Never mind the power shovel at present."
own the ropes swarmed the gang of negroes. Dr. Bird indicated an area at one end of the cavern and directed them to dig. The blacks flew to work with a will. The top soil and subsoil were rapidly tossed into buckets and hauled to the surface. When bare rock lay before them, the negroes ceased their efforts.
"What next, Doctuh, suh?" asked the foreman.
"Get dynamite!" cried the doctor. "If I'm right, this underground cavern is entered by a tunnel. We'll blast away this caved-in rock until we locate it."
Then occurred a strange thing.