gold was. From there I knew that I could strike the passage
which led into the sleigh road under the hills. Half an hour's travel
ought to bring us to the rocking stone at the entrance, and safety.

But I found that I had entered the mine from a third point, and that
some forty feet away from the place where I had emerged before. This
time we were inside the cave in which Leroux and Lacroix had piled the
sacks of earth.

I was looking out beyond them toward the rivulet, and on my right hand
and on my left the tunnel stretched away, leading respectively toward
the _chateau_ and to the rocking stone at the entrance.

I left Jacqueline in the cave for a few moments and went into the
smaller one near by, where I had seen the provisions on the preceding
day. I found a small box of hard biscuit, with which I stuffed the
pockets of my coat, and, happier still, a small revolver and some
cartridges, to which I helped myself liberally.

Then I went back to Jacqueline.

We must go on. Half an hour more should see us outside the tunnel
beyond the mountains. And this was the day on which Pere Antoine would
be expecting me.

It seemed incredible that so much could have happened in
four-and-twenty hours.

But there was no sign of Charles Duchaine. And I did not intend to
jeopardize our future for the sake of the crazed old man.

"Jacqueline," I said, "let us go on. Perhaps your father is on his way
outside the tunnel."

She shook her head. "We must find him first," she answered.

"But that is impossible," I protested. "How can we go wandering among
these dark passages when we do not know where he has gone? You know he
is invaluable to Leroux, and he will come to no harm with him. If we
get free, we can return with aid and rescue him."

"We cannot go without my father," she answered, shaking her head in
determination.

"But----"

"Oh, don't you see that we _must_ find him?" she cried wildly. "But
_you_ must go. You cannot be burdened with me. Give up your hopeless
mission to rescue us, _monsieur_, and save yourself!"

At that my hopes, which had been so high, went crashing down.

"Jacqueline," I said, "if we can find your father you will come with
me? Because it has occurred to me," I went on, "that if he had come
this way, his footprints would be in the mud beside the stream. It
would take an hour or two for them to fill up again. So, perhaps, he
did not come this far, but is hiding in some cave i