Ronicky Doone Part 27

"Well, my proof is easy. Here we are in hard-pan dirt, without any sort of a tool for digging. So we sure can't tunnel out from the sides, can we?"

"Looks most like we can't," said Ronicky sadly.

"And the only ways that are left are the ends."

"That's right."

"But one end is the unfinished part of the tunnel; and, if you think we can do anything to the steel door--"

"Hush up," said Ronicky. "Besides, there ain't any use in you talking in a whisper, either. No, it sure don't look like we could do much to that door. Besides, even if we could, I don't think I'd go. I'd rather take a chance against starvation than another trip to fat Fernand's place. If I ever enter it again, son, you lay to it that he'll get me b.u.mped off, mighty p.r.o.nto."

Jerry Smith, after a groan, returned to his argument. "But that ties us up, Ronicky. The door won't work, and it's worse than solid rock. And we can't tunnel out the side, without so much as a pin to help us dig, can we? I think that just about settles things. Ronicky, we can't get out."

"Suppose we had some dynamite," said Ronicky cheerily.

"Sure, but we haven't."

"Suppose we find some?"

Jerry Smith groaned. "Are you trying to make a joke out of this?

Besides, could we send off a blast of dynamite in a closed tunnel like this?"

"We could try," said Ronicky. "Way I'm figuring is to show you it's bad medicine to sit down and figure out how you're beat. Even if you owe a pile of money they's some satisfaction in sitting back and adding up the figures so that you come out about a million dollars on top--in your dreams. Before we can get out of here we got to begin to feel powerful sure."

"But you take it straight, friend: Fernand ain't going to leave us in here. Nope, he's going to find a way to get us out. That's easy to figure out. But the way he'll get us out will be as dead ones, and then he can dump us, when he feels like it, in the river. Ain't that the simplest way of working it out?"

The teeth of Jerry Smith came together with a snap. "Then the thing for us to do is to get set and wait for them to make an attack?"

"No use waiting. When they attack it'll be in a way that'll give us no chance."

"Then you figure the same as me--we're lost?"

"Unless we can get out before they make the attack. In other words, Jerry, there may be something behind the dirt wall at the end of the tunnel."

"Nonsense, Ronicky."

"There's got to be," said Ronicky very soberly, "because, if there ain't, you and me are dead ones, Jerry. Come along and help me look, anyway."

Jerry rose obediently and flashed on his precious pocket torch, and they went down to pa.s.s the turn and come again to the ragged wall of earth which terminated the pa.s.sage. Jerry held the torch and pa.s.sed it close to the dirt. All was solid. There was no sign of anything wrong. The very pick marks were clearly defined.

"Hold on," whispered Ronicky Doone. "Hold on, Jerry. I seen something."

He s.n.a.t.c.hed the electric torch, and together they peered at the patch from which the dried earth had fallen.

"Queer for hardpan to break up like that," muttered Ronicky, cutting into the surface beneath the patch, with the point of his hunting knife.

Instantly there was the sharp gritting of steel against steel.

The shout of Ronicky was an indrawn breath. The shout of Jerry Smith was a moan of relief.

Ronicky continued his observations. The thing was very clear. They had dug the tunnel to this point and excavated a place which they had guarded with a steel door, but, in order to conceal the hiding place, or whatever it might be, they cunningly worked the false wall of dirt against the face of it, using clay and a thin coating of plaster as a base.

"It's a place they don't use very often, maybe," said Ronicky, "and that's why they can afford to put up this fake wall of plaster and mud after every time they want to come down here. Pretty clever to leave that little pile of dirt on the floor, just like it had been worked off by the picks, eh? But we've found 'em, Jerry, and now all we got to do is to get to the door and into whatever lies beyond."

"We'd better hurry, then," cried Jerry.

"How come?"

"Take a breath."

Ronicky obeyed; the air was beginning to fill with the pungent and unmistakable odor of burning wood!

Chapter Twenty-one

_The Miracle_

No great intelligence was needed to understand the meaning of it.

Fernand, having trapped his game, was now about to kill it. He could suffocate the two with smoke, blown into the tunnel, and make them rush blindly out. The moment they appeared, dazed and uncertain, the revolvers of half a dozen gunmen would be emptied into them.

"It's like taking a trap full of rats," said Ronicky bitterly, "and shaking them into a pail of water. Let's go back and see what we can."

They had only to turn the corner of the tunnel to be sure. Fernand had had the door of the tunnel slid noiselessly open, then, into the tunnel itself, smoking, slowly burning, pungent pieces of pine wood had been thrown, having been first soaked in oil, perhaps. The tunnel was rapidly filling with smoke, and through the white drifts of it they looked into the lighted cellar beyond. They would run out at last, gasping for breath and blinded by the smoke, to be shot down in a perfect light. So much was clear.

"Now back to the wall and try to find that door," said Ronicky.

Jerry had already turned. In a moment they were back and tearing with their fingers at the sham wall, kicking loose fragments with their feet.

All the time, while they cleared a larger and larger s.p.a.ce, they searched feverishly with the electric torch for some sign of a k.n.o.b which would indicate a door, or some b.u.t.ton or spring which might be used to open it. But there was nothing, and in the meantime the smoke was drifting back, in more and more unendurable clouds.

"I can't stand much more," declared Jerry at length.

"Keep low. The best air is there," answered Ronicky.

A voice called from the mouth of the tunnel, and they could recognize the smooth tongue of Frederic Fernand. "Doone, I think I have you now.

But trust yourselves to me, and all may still be well with you. Throw out your weapons, and then walk out yourselves, with your arms above your heads, and you may have a second chance. I don't promise--I simply offer you a hope in the place of no hope at all. Is that a good bargain?"

"I'll see you hung first," answered Ronicky and turned again to his work at the wall.

But it seemed a quite hopeless task. The surface of the steel was still covered, after they had cleared it as much as they could, with a thin, clinging coat of plaster which might well conceal the b.u.t.ton or device for opening the door. Every moment the task became infinitely harder.

Finally Jerry, his lungs nearly empty of oxygen, cast himself down on the floor and gasped. A horrible gagging sound betrayed his efforts for breath.

Ronicky knelt beside him. His own lungs were burning, and his head was thick and dizzy. "One more try, then we'll turn and rush them and die fighting, Jerry."

The other nodded and started to his feet. Together they made that last effort, fumbling with their hands across the rough surface, and suddenly--had they touched the spring, indeed?--a section of the surface before them swayed slowly in. Ronicky caught the half-senseless body of Jerry Smith and thrust him inside. He himself staggered after, and before him stood Ruth Tolliver!

While he lay panting on the floor, she closed the door through which they had come and then stood and silently watched them. Presently Smith sat up, and Ronicky Doone staggered to his feet, his head clearing rapidly.