ees shook beneath him.
Only a short time had elapsed since that dreadful first shock had come,
yet to the youth it seemed an age.

He looked at the torch. It had burned well down and would not last much
longer. And when it was gone he would be left in total darkness!

This was a new cause for fear, and it made Dave move around faster than
ever.

Suddenly he stopped short. A new sound had reached his ears--a strange,
weird sound that made his flesh creep and his hair stand on end.

It was the cry of a wildcat--shrill and uncanny in that pent-up space.
Slowly it came nearer, although from what direction our hero could not
at first make out.

He waited behind a spur of rocks and the cry--it was more a whine of
fright than anything else--came closer. Then, on a shelf of rocks but a
short distance away, Dave caught sight of the beast.

It was limping along on three feet, dragging a bleeding hind leg and a
bleeding tail behind it. Evidently it had been caught between the
falling stones as in a trap and had pulled itself loose in a mad effort
to save its life.

For the moment Dave forgot his other perils as he faced the beast.
Evidently the wildcat had scented the youth, for it gave a savage cry
as of defiance. Perhaps it thought that Dave was responsible in some way
for the pain it was suffering.

The youth's hand was on the rocks and almost unconsciously it closed on
a sharp stone about as big as his fist. Raising the stone, he took quick
aim and threw it at the wildcat.

As my old readers know, Dave was a good baseball player and, at Oak
Hall, had often filled the pitcher's box with credit. He threw the stone
with accuracy and vigor, and it landed fairly and squarely on the head
of the wildcat.

There was a weird screech, and the beast whirled around and around on
the rocks, coming closer and closer to our hero. Once it clawed savagely
at Dave, but he shoved the creature off before any damage was done. Then
it fell down in a cleft of some rocks, where it snapped and snarled
until Dave sent down a heavy boulder on top of it, thus ending its
misery.

"Phew!" gasped the youth, after the excitement was over. "That was
almost as bad as when we shot the mountain lioness!"

He had dropped the end of his torch, but now picked it up once more and
commenced to move around as before. He proceeded blindly, not knowing in
what direction to turn to reach the outer air.

"Where can the others be?" was a question he asked