The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle Part 14

After much groping and knocking of heads together, Betty and Amy also armed themselves with imitation shovels, and so the work began.

And it was work indeed. For what seemed hours to the anxious girls they toiled, digging sometimes with the stones, sometimes in desperation with their hands until it seemed to them they must have dug their way half through the mountainside. And still that blank wall of dirt, that impenetrable darkness, that stubborn barrier between them and the blessed suns.h.i.+ne. Amy was the first to give way.

She sank back on the dank floor of the cave and buried her face in her dirt-stained hands.

"We'll never get out of here!" she sobbed. "And I'm st-starving to d-death!"

CHAPTER XII

IN THE DARKNESS

Now the girls had been hungry before the accident occurred and, it being several hours since then, they were, by this time, as any one could readily see, in a rather bad state. Therefore, Amy's complaint was very unfortunate and, had it not been for Betty, it might have ruined the morale of the girls completely.

"Good gracious, Amy, don't talk about starving to death," cried Mollie, dismayed. "That's coming too near the truth for comfort. Oh, this miserable stone. It's cutting clear through my hand!"

"And my back is nearly broken," said Grace, adding, as she turned ferociously upon the still-sobbing Amy: "Stop that crying, Amy Blackford. Don't you know it is catching?" and a suspicious break at the end of her sentence, proved the truth of the a.s.sertion.

"Girls, please don't," begged Betty, still digging automatically at the stubborn wall of stones and dirt. "If you all begin to cry, then we might just as well throw up our hands and say we are beaten."

It was not long after that that the girls found what they called their "second wind." They forgot that they were ravenous, that their backs ached and that their hands were scratched and torn. They worked furiously in the darkness, their goal the out-of-doors they loved so well.

For a long time they did not notice that the air was becoming very close and oppressive and that the perspiration that bothered them so was caused not alone by their exertion. And when the realization did come it had the effect of goading them on to more furious effort.

That the horses also felt the change in the atmosphere, was attested to by their increased nervousness. The trampling of their hoofs sounded ominous to the girls--they made queer little puffing noises as if they were getting their breath with greater and greater difficulty.

In one terrible instant the girls realized what might happen when what was discomfort to the animals now, should become torture. Maddened by pain and fright, it would be no longer possible to quiet them. And then--and then----

"Don't you think we'd better stop and try to quiet the horses?" asked Mollie once, as the champing and snorting in the blackness behind them became more marked.

"I don't think it would do any good," Betty answered between clenched teeth as she scooped and dug, scooped and dug. "Better keep on working, girls. It's the one chance we have."

Oh, the horror of it, the nightmare of it! The heavy air, the hideous dark, the nervous trampling of those death-bearing hoofs---- The girls spoke no longer. They were beyond speech. Almost maddened by terror themselves, they scooped and dug, scooped and dug----

Once they thought they heard voices outside, and shrilly they cried to their imaginary rescuers. No answering "hallo" reached them, and the only effect of their cries seemed to be to add to the fright of their horses and so endanger themselves still more.

On, on, on--while their aching muscles seemed to grow numb with the strain and their lungs nearly burst with the pressure upon them.

At last they gave in--it seemed that they had to give in. All except Betty, who kept on desperately, doggedly, her muscles barely able to respond to the last call she was making upon them.

"I can't go on any more. I'm all in," said Mollie, a desperate quiet in her voice. "My arms are like lead and my hands are so numb I can't feel the stone. I guess this is the last adventure of the Outdoor Girls. We have just had one too many, that's all."

"Oh, Mollie!" Betty drew in a labored breath that caught on a sob.

"Please don't give up--please! I've counted on you----" she paused, jerked her head up, her attention turned on the spot where her hand still automatically dug at the earth.

She sniffed, experimentally, sniffed again, stilling the wild throb of hope that was almost a pain at her heart.

"What is it, Betty, what is it?" cried Mollie, sensing something strange. Amy and Grace fought off the dizziness that was stealing over them and leaned forward.

But Betty had jumped to her feet, had dropped the stone and was tearing with her bare hands at that thin place--that thin place---- It gave under her mad onslaught, and suddenly her hand slipped through into the air--the air---- A breath of it swept into her tortured lungs, and she leaned there, laughing, crying, the tears of sheer weakness running down her dirt-stained face.

"Girls!" she babbled, "out there is the air--the good old air--enough of it for all of us! We're saved, do you hear? We're saved!"

Exhausted as they were, the girls tore at the tiny hole that Betty had made until there was an opening big enough for them to crawl through.

And oh! the indescribable ecstasy of it, the joy of it, just to lie there, trembling with weakness, and drink in great drafts of that life-giving air, thinking of nothing, caring for nothing but that they were alive there in their great out-of-doors. One never comes really to appreciate life until one has been close to death.

It was a long time before they ventured to go on. They had not realized how near exhaustion they had been until the tension had relaxed. When at last they did start for home, on foot, they were still trembling and they dared not glance down the canyon at their right for fear of becoming dizzy.

They had been long hours in the cave, and when they finally left the trail and cut across the plain toward the ranch it was nearly dark. They did not realize the startling sight they must present to any one who might not know of their plight until they met Andy Rawlinson and some other boys from the ranch starting out to search for them.

At sight of the mud-stained, blood-stained Outdoor Girls, Andy Rawlinson fairly tumbled from his pony and came running toward them while the other boys stood agape.

"What in the world----" began Andy, but Betty stopped him with a weary gesture. As briefly as she could she told him what had happened and asked him to go back and get their horses.

"It's getting pretty dark now, you know," she reminded him, when he seemed inclined to linger and ask questions. "Soon you won't be able to see what you're doing. Won't you please hurry?"

"Surest thing you know," responded the boy quickly, his nice eyes full of sympathy for them. "Some of the boys will see you home--your folks are getting awfully worried about you, you know--and the rest of us will go on and dig out the poor bronchos. So long. We'll be back p.r.o.nto."

"And now home," sighed Betty, as she looked at the ranch house just visible in the distance. "And a bath--and something to eat. What does that sound like, girls?"

"Heaven!" they answered.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LURE OF GOLD

The task of releasing the imprisoned horses was not such an easy task as the girls and even Andy Rawlinson had thought it would be.

In the first place, it took Andy and his company some time to discover the place along the trail where the landslide had occurred, for Betty's account had been hasty and excited and she had overlooked several details that might have helped them in their work.

And when they did reach the scene of what might have been a tragedy the ranch hands were appalled by the immensity of the landslide. There had been several small ones in that vicinity, but this was what Andy termed a "humdinger."

There was a stamping and snorting from inside that dirt-choked cavern that, there in that lonely spot on the very edge of night, seemed positively uncanny to the men who stood and listened.

"Better get busy, boys," said Andy suddenly. "Those hosses ain't goin'

to get any easier in they minds an' it's about time we dug 'em out of there. Back to Gold Run as fast as we can get there for the right kind of tools from the miners. We may need some more men, too. Gosh, but I didn't know it was as bad as that," he added with a glance over his shoulder as he turned his pony and dashed back down the trail in the direction of Gold Run. "Reckon 'twas just plain grit that got those girls out."

Back in Gold Run they found several miners who were willing to offer both themselves and their tools toward the work of liberation, and soon the cowboys returned, accompanied by men with lanterns, and fell to work with a will.

Two hours later, Andy Rawlinson ventured into the blackness of the cave, swinging his lantern before him, and led forth the first of the frightened horses.