Pocketing the sample he walked further in until he saw a black hole yawning before him, and beside it lay a notched pole such as the Indians had used in Spanish times to climb out of mine shafts. Looking over into the hole he saw a longer pole reaching down into the darkness. He peered over, then straightened. This, then, was what Dan Mello had meant! The Martins wanted gold.

The match flickered out, and standing there in the cool darkness, he thought it over and understood. This place was on land used, and probably claimed, by Bill Katrishen, and could not be worked unless they were driven off. But could he make Gray Bowen believe him? What would Lee do if his scheme was exposed? Why had Mello been so insistent that Martin was dangerous?

He bent over and started into the tunnel exit, then stopped. Kneeling just outside were Lee Martin, Art Dunn, and Jay Mello. Lee had a shotgun pointed at Jim’s body. Jim jerked back around the corner of stone even as the shotgun thundered.

“You dirty, murderin’ rat!” he yelled. “Let me out in the open and try that!”

Martin laughed. “I wouldn’t think of it! You’re right where I want you now and you’ll stay there!”

Desperately, Jim stared around. Martin was right. He was bottled up now. He drew his gun, wanting to chance a shot at Martin while yet there was time, but when he stole a glance around the corner of the tunnel there was nothing to be seen. Suddenly, he heard a sound of metal striking stone, a rattle of rock, then a thunderous crash and the tunnel was filled with dust, stifling and thick. Lee Martin had closed off the tunnel mouth and he was entombed alive!

Jim Sandifer leaned back against the rock wall of the slope and closed his eyes. He was frightened. He was frightened with a deep, soul-shaking fear, for this was something against which he could not fight, those walls of living rock around him, and the dead debris of the rock-choked tunnel. Had there been time and air a man might work out an escape, but there was so little time, so little air. He was buried alive.

Slowly, the dust settled from the heavy air. Saving his few matches he got down on his knees and crawled into the tunnel, but there was barely room enough. Mentally, he tried to calculate the distance out, and he could see that there was no less than fifteen feet of rock between him and escape—not an impossible task if more rock did not slide down from above. Remembering the mountain, he knew that above the tunnel mouth it was almost one vast slide.

He could hear nothing, and the air was hot and close. On his knees he began to feel his way around, crawling until he reached the tunnel and the notched pole. Here he hesitated, wondering what the darkness below would hold.

Water, perhaps? Or even snakes? He had heard of snakes taking over old mines and once crawling down the ladder into an old shaft had seen an enormous rattler, the biggest he had ever seen, coiled about the ladder just below him. Nevertheless, he began to descend—down, down into the abysmal blackness below him. He seemed to have climbed down an interminable distance when suddenly his boot touched rock.

Standing upright, one hand on the pole, he reached out. His hand found rock on three sides, on the other, only empty space. He turned in that direction and ran smack into the rock wall, knocking sparks from his skull. He drew back, swearing, and found the tunnel. At the same time his hand touched something else, a sort of ledge in the corner of the rock, and on the ledge— his heart gave a leap!

Candles!

Quickly, he got out a match and lit the first one. Then he walked into the tunnel. Here was more of the rose quartz, and it was incredibly seamed with gold. Lee Martin had made a strike. Rather, studying the walls, he had found an old mine, perhaps an old Spanish working, although work had been done down here within the last few weeks. Suddenly Jim saw a pick and he grinned. There might yet be a way out. Yet a few minutes of exploration sufficed to indicate that there was no other opening. If he went out it must be by the way he came.

Taking the candles with him he climbed the notched pole and stuck a lighted candle on a rock. Then, with the pick at his side, he started to work at the debris choking the tunnel. He lifted a rock and moved it aside, then another.

An hour later, soaked with sweat, he was still working away, pausing each minute or so to examine the hanging wall. The tunnel was cramped and the work moved slowly ahead for every stone removed had to be shoved back into the stope behind him. He reached the broken part overhead, and when he moved a rock, more slid down. He worked on, his breath coming in great gasps, sweat dripping from his face and neck to his hands.

A new sound came to him, a faint tapping. He held still, listening, trying to quiet his breathing and the pound of his heart. Then he heard it again, an unmistakable tapping!

Grasping his pick, he tapped three times, then an interval, then three times again. Then he heard somebody pull at the rocks of the tunnel and his heart pounded with exultation. He had help! He had been found!

CHAPTER FOUR: Guns Out

How the following hours passed Sandifer never quite knew, but working feverishly, he fought his way through the border of time that divided him from the outer world and the clean, pine-scented air. Suddenly, a stone was moved and an arrow of light stabbed the darkness, and with it the cool air he wanted. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with air so liquid it might almost be water, and then he went to work, helping the hands outside to enlarge the opening. When there was room enough, he thrust his head and shoulders through, then pulled himself out and stood up, dusting himself off— and found he was facing, not Bill Katrishen or one of his sons, but Jay Mello!

“You?” he was astonished. “What brought you back?”

Jay wiped his thick hands on his jeans and looked uncomfortable.

“Never figured to bury no man alive,” he said. “That was Martin’s idee. Anyway, Katrishen told me what you done for Dan.”

“Did he tell you I’d killed him? I’m sorry, Jay. It was him or me.”

“Sure. I knowed that when he come after you. I didn’t like it nohow. What I meant, well—you could’ve left him lie. You didn’t need to go git help for him. I went huntin’ Dan, when I found you was alive, an’ I figured it was like that, that he was dead. Katrishen give me his clothes, an’ I found this—”

It was a note, scrawled painfully, perhaps on a rifle stock, or a flat rock, written, no doubt, while Jim was gone for help.

Jay:

Git shet of Marten. Sandfer’s all right. He’s gone for hulp to Katrisshn. I’m hard hit. Sandfer shore is wite. So long, Jay, good ridin.

Dan.

“I’m sorry, Jay. He was game.”

“Sure.” Jay Mello scowled. “It was Martin got us into this, him an’ Klee Mont. We never done no killin’ before, maybe stole a few hosses or run off a few head of cows.”

“What happened? How long was I in there?” Jim glanced at the sun.

“About five, six hours. She’ll be dark soon.” Mello hesitated, “I reckon I’m goin’ to take out—light a shuck for Texas.”

Sandifer thrust out his hand. “Good luck, Jay. Maybe we’ll meet again.”

The outlaw nodded. He stared at the ground, and then he looked up, his tough, unshaven face strangely lonely in the late afternoon sun.

“Sure wish Dan was ridin’ with me. We always rode together, him an’ me, since we was kids.” He rubbed a hard hand over his lips. “What d’you know? That girl back to Katrishen’s? She put some flowers on his grave! Sure enough!”

He turned and walked to his horse, swung into the saddle and walked his horse down the trail, a somber figure captured momentarily by the sunlight before he turned away under the pines. Incongruously, Jim noticed that the man’s vest was split up the back, and the crown of his hat was torn.