The Peril Finders Part 79

"But I did, my lad; and I kept on waking up and then going to sleep and dreaming the same thing again. I never saw such big ones alive as I saw creeping along the bottom of that great square hole, getting into the corners and squirming up one till they nearly stood upon their tails, and then fell over sidewise with a crack that sent the dust flying."

"Horrid!" said Chris.

"Yes. They're not nice things to dream about--snakes--because of the waking up."

"Yes, I know," cried Chris eagerly. "You fancy that you really have them about you, and feel as if you can't believe it was only a dream."

"You never felt like that?" cried Griggs.

"Yes, I have, more than once."

"Well, that's strange, because it's just how I felt over and over again last night, and it quite set me against the job."

"But now it is morning and we're all awake and rested you don't think it's likely that there are any rattlers down in that hole?"

"I do think it's very likely, my lad," said the American gravely. "Give one a rocky place out in the desert where the hot sun s.h.i.+nes, and there's no one to interfere with them, and you're pretty sure to find some of those gentlemen. I wonder we haven't seen more."

"I don't like the idea of your going down, Griggs," said Chris.

"Forward there," cried the doctor from below, as he finished a long look at the edge of the cliff, sweeping it with his gla.s.s and wondering whether they could reach the tableland in which the depression stood like a chasm split in a blue, rocky desert, "Yes," he said sharply, changing the course of his thoughts, "we must explore the other side of this great chasm, but let's finish one side first."

He was content to let Chris take the lead, and his friends smilingly gave way, humouring him, as they called it to themselves, Bourne good-temperedly taking it all as a matter of course, and feeling in nowise jealous on behalf of his own son. Wilton had on one occasion said something about favouritism, but Bourne had only laughed.

"Oh, let the boys alone," he said, "and let them settle the supremacy between them. That will be all right. Chris is as honest and frank as the day. You must have seen that."

"Seen what?"

"Why, that the boy's generous at heart. He bullies Ned horribly sometimes, and then afterwards he seems to repent and behaves like a lamb, while Ned turns dog."

So it was that in this matter of the exploration Chris led with his companion, and Griggs followed next, as if he were their henchman, while the three friends came last.

The ascents were made with spirit till all stood in the chamber at the back of which the opening led into the side of the square pit, and here, while the doctor thoughtfully turned over and examined some of the remains still left, Griggs lit the lanthorn he had brought, and Ned tied one end of a hide-rope to it, ready for the lowering down, while Chris had stepped through the hole and stood on the broad ledge at the foot of the rough projections in the stone wall that acted as steps.

"It must have been awful," he said aloud suddenly, as he stood peering up through the twilight at the remains of the piled-up stones at the top.

"What must have been awful?" asked Wilton, stepping out to his side.

"Why, that fight when the Indians climbed up these steps, with the other people raining down big stones on their heads."

"Think it was so?" said Wilton quietly.

"I feel sure of it. My word! Never mind about them being horribly savage--how brave they must have been! Why, I felt regularly shaky at having to get up yonder with no enemy to face."

"Yes, it's an ugly place," said Wilton; "but what about enemies down below? Can you see anything?"

"No," said Chris, gazing down. "It's as black as black. I say, though, if there are any enemies down there they're poisonous."

"What do you think possibly can be down there--one of the fierce cats of the country?"

"No," said Chris, smiling queerly. "Rattlers."

"Ugh!"

"If there are any we shall see them when the lanthorn's swung down.

Why, it will be a good bit of sport for you to have a shot at them."

"The horrible beasts!" said Wilton.

"We're ready when you are," said Griggs from the chamber. "The light's burning quite brightly."

"Bring it here, then.--I say, Mr Wilton, there isn't room for all of us on this bit of a landing. Will you go up to the top and be ready to fire?"

"No," said Wilton shortly. "I'll leave it to you and Ned."

He stepped back to join his friends in the chamber, and then, seeing how they were occupied, he stepped out on to the remains of the terrace, to stand there examining the openings in the cliff-face opposite.

"That's right, Griggs, swing it down gently," said Chris. "You, Ned, unsling your gun, and the first rattler you see give him a charge of small shot."

Ned fixed himself against the wall with his left arm round one of the projections, c.o.c.ked his piece, and stood ready with the muzzle pointed downward, gazing the while into the darkness far below, now beginning to be illumined by the swinging lanthorn, as Griggs paid out the rope and sent it lower and lower.

"You can see the heap of stuff--ashes, lying in a slope now," cried Chris, who was watching intently. "Look, there's one of those--you know what--looking almost white and s.h.i.+ning.--Isn't that something moving, Griggs?"

"Can't see anything yet but that pile of stuff that went down. I say, it's not so very deep, after all."

"Thirty feet at least," said Chris decisively.--"There, I'm sure of that. I saw something move right over in that--"

"Corner," he was going to say, but the word was smothered by the sharp echoing report of Ned's piece, whose flash seemed brighter than the light of the lanthorn, which glowed like a dull star now disappearing in a pa.s.sing cloud of smoke.

"A rattler?" cried Chris.

"I'm not sure, but I saw something gliding along, and I fired."

"Good boy! Quite right! Sharp's the word. But I say, what a smother you've made. Get in another cartridge."

_Click_! went Ned's piece as he closed the breech.

"If that was a rattler," said Griggs coolly, "seems as if it was just as well that I didn't go down last night."

"And this morning too," said Chris. "Why, there may be quite a nest of the brutes down there."

"P'r'aps so. But if there is it must have made some of them sneeze when all that dust went down with a rush yesterday."

Just then Wilton leaned in at the window-opening of the cell where the doctor and Bourne were examining a carefully-smoothed, elliptical, cell-like stone with a hole through the thickest part as if for holding a wooden handle.

"What have you found?" he said.

"A stone battle-axe, without doubt."