e snow away from the edges of the
hole and tapped at the rock with the back of his belt ax.

"It ain't loose!" came the voice. "It's solid rock--a hundred ton of it
caved in my tunnel. The whole hill is quartz inside and I shot a face
and the hill caved in."

A hurried examination confirmed the man's statement. Connie found, under
the snow, evidences of the mouth of a tunnel, and then he saw that the
whole face of the ledge had fallen forward, blocking the tunnel at the
mouth. The small triangular opening used by the foxes, had originally
been a notch in the old face of the ledge. The boy stared at the mass of
rock in dismay. Fully twelve feet of solid rock separated the man from
the outside world! Once more he placed his mouth to the hole. "Hello,
James Dean!"

"Hello!"

"Isn't there any other opening to the cave?" he asked.

"Opening to the cave? Another opening? No--no--only my window, an'
that's too high."

"Window," cried Connie. "Where is your window?"

"'Way up high--a hundred feet high. I've carried forty ton of rock--but
I never can reach it--because I've run out of rock--and my powder and
drills was buried in the cave-in."

"I'm going to find that window!" cried the boy. "You go back and get as
close to the window as you can, and yell and I'll find it, and when I
do, we'll pull you out in a jiffy."

"It's too high," wailed the man, "and my rock run out!"

"Go over there and yell!" repeated the boy. "I'll let a line down and
we'll pull you out."

Turning to 'Merican Joe, whose nerve had completely returned when he
became convinced that the author of the strange yell was a man of flesh
and blood, the boy ordered him post-haste to the tent to fetch the three
coils of strong _babiche_ line that he had added to the outfit. When the
Indian had gone, Connie struck straight up the hill, examining the
surface of the snow eagerly for sight of a hole. But it was not until
two hours later, after he and the Indian had circled and spiralled the
hill in every direction, that he was attracted to a patch of scrawny
scrub by the faint sound of a long-drawn yell.

Into the scrub dashed the boy, and there, yawning black and forbidding,
beneath a low rock-ledge, was a hole at least four feet in height, and
eight or nine feet wide. And from far down in the depths came the sound
of the voice, loud and distinct now that he stood directly in front of
the hole. The boy called for 'Merican Joe, and while he waited for the