uld see that the same thought was in his
mind.

"Bob never seemed to think of this possibility, though, and you may be
sure we were careful not to give him an inkling of our anxiety. That
would do no good, and our fears might be unfounded.

"While we were examining the hand, our companions had descended, and of
course Bob had to repeat the cause of the accident to them.

"But how do you feel now, old man?" queried Brad, when he had finished.

"Oh, nothing extra," replied Bob. "I seem to feel rather dizzy, but I
suppose that's the result of the fall. I'm lucky not to have broken my
neck."

"Well, anyway, it's up to us to get out of this hoodooed place as soon as
possible," I told them. "Come along. I'll go up first, then you fellows
come, and we'll haul Bob out."

"Accordingly I started up our improvised rope hand over hand. I had not
ascended more than five or six feet, however, when with a slight r-r-ip
the rope parted above my head, and I fell back to the stones below.
Fortunately I landed on my feet, and so escaped with nothing worse than a
severe shaking up.

"But I had small reason to be thankful, nevertheless, for the desperate
nature of our position was soon borne in upon me. How to get out--that
was the question, and, when I put it up to my companions, they had no
answer.

"The place in which we were now imprisoned seemed to be a sort of tunnel.
It was not more than fifteen feet wide, but we had no means of telling
how long it might be. To get out the way we had come was evidently out
of the question, as the roof of the tunnel was at least twenty-five feet
above our heads.

"Well, boys," said Bradhurst, at last, "the only thing we can do is to
follow the course of this hole one way or the other, and try to find an
outlet. And the sooner we start the better, as our torches aren't going
to last much longer."

"Here was another horror added to our situation, which had seemed bad
enough before. Without light, our chances of escape from the horrible
place would be slight indeed, so we acted on our comrade's advice without
delay.

"There was apparently little choice of direction. Our torches burned
steadily, and so we knew there was no breeze coming from either direction
that might point to an outlet. Our sense of locality was rather twisted
by this time, but after a consultation we set out through the tunnel in
what we believed to be the direction of our camp. Before we had gone
far, Bob