The Blue Ghost Mystery: A Rick Brant Science-Adventure Story

"Okay."

Scotty turned on his light. They found their shirts, then went back to survey what they had accomplished.

One glance told them it wasn't much. They had cleaned out the passage up to the main slide, and that was all.

They looked at each other in the flashlight's glow.

"Got any earth-moving equipment in your pocket?" Rick asked wryly.

"Not a dragline or a clamshell," Scotty said. "We certainly didn't make much of a dent, did we?"

"At this rate we'll be here until Christmas," Rick said.

"Not that we'll need a Christmas tree."

"We could use the lights," Rick commented. "Let's keep plugging. I'm not so sure I need a rest after all."

"Might as well."

"Just sitting on the rocks will sap our strength, anyway," Rick pointed out. "We might as well work while we're still fresh. We can take five-minute breaks when we begin to tire."

"I'm with you. Tote those rocks."

"Let's use one light, too. No point in just clearing the tunnel. We want to break through in as short a time as possible. If we use the light we can pull rocks from nearer the top of the slide."

"Sensible as usual. I'll prop my light so it shines on the slide."

Scotty did so, then both boys shed their shirts once more.

The rock hauling went faster even with the rays of the single flashlight. They took turns climbing the slide and throwing rocks down. The boy taking a turn at the bottom moved them out of the way.

"Watch it!" Rick yelled suddenly, and jumped away from a slide of rock. Scotty, who was back in the tunnel disposing of a big rock, asked anxiously, "Are you hurt?"

"No. Hand me that light, will you?"

Scotty carried the light to where Rick waited. Rick took it and shone it upward to where the slide had come from. He whistled. There was solid ceiling, but it was a yard higher than the rest of the tunnel ceiling.

He calculated quickly. "If this is typical, we have rock three feet thick, ten feet wide, and twenty feet long piled up in front of us. That makes six hundred cubic feet of rock."

"But it can't be typical," Scotty disagreed. "If three feet had fallen uniformly, it wouldn't have filled the tunnel. It must be much thicker right over the broken timbers."

"Not a very cheerful prospect, is it?" Rick had a vision of yards of rock ahead.

"I've seen happier prospects. But what can we do? Keep plugging is all, and hope it doesn't take long for Dr. Miller to locate us."

Rick looked at his watch. "No chance of that yet. It isn't even suppertime. It may be morning before Dr. Miller gets really worried."

Scotty chuckled grimly. "Our own reputation for being able to take care of ourselves is not helping us, either."

"I'll never go into a place without two entrances again," Rick promised.

There was a moment's shocked silence while the boys stared at each other. They spoke simultaneously.

"How do you know this has only one entrance?"

"How do we know this hasn't two entrances?"

They had never reached the end of the mine. For all they knew, it might only be necessary to walk out!

"We'll go see," Rick stated. "Right now."

"Didn't we ever ask about another entrance?" Scotty demanded.

"No, now that I think of it, and no one ever said anything about it."

"Maybe they never said anything because there isn't anything to say."

"No more assumptions," Rick said. "We can find out for ourselves. Get your shirt on and let's go."

They quickly dressed and hiked down the long tunnel to the point they had reached when the cave-in occurred. Rick paid more attention to the formation than before, and found it was easy to trace the ore vein. Pockets in the walls showed where offshoots of the main ore vein had been located and dug out, but mostly the mine bored through the hill in one continuous tunnel.

"Funny they didn't take more ore out of the top," Scotty commented. "Looks like fairly decent stuff overhead and to the left."

"Not good enough, I guess. Refining was pretty primitive in those days. Techniques are better now, but there probably isn't enough good ore here to make new operations worth the expense of getting it out."

"Look ahead," Scotty said.

Rick had been examining the wall of the tunnel. He turned and looked to where Scotty pointed, and his heart sank. It was another rockslide.

"Funny," Scotty commented. "The tunnel goes uphill to the slide."

Rick saw that his pal was right. But the change in elevation of the tunnel didn't seem important compared to the prospect that now faced them. They simply had to go back and resume their rock hauling. There was no way of knowing whether the tunnel continued beyond the slide, or whether the slide itself was the reason the Civil War miners had gone no farther.

"I need a rest," Rick said, discouraged. "Let's sit down and take a breather before we start back."

"Okay. Douse the light?"

"Might as well. Your battery's getting low."

Scotty switched the light off and they sat down on the hard rock floor. Rick closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Plenty of hard work ahead. He might as well rest while he could.

Scotty spoke suddenly. "Plenty of good fresh air down here. Isn't that a little odd?"

Rick stirred. "Is it? I hadn't thought much about it. But I suppose the air ought to be stale and smelly."

"Wet your finger."

"Huh? Oh, okay." It was the ancient trick of using the cooling caused by evaporation of moisture from a damp finger to show the movement of air currents. Rick let out an exclamation. The air in the tunnel was in motion!