“We’re cooked.”
Sam was silent for a moment. “What do you suppose the Indian would do... if he won the fight upstairs and knew we were down here?”
“I hope he’d come down and search for us.”
“You don’t really think he would, though?”
“I don’t know,” Johnny said, frankly. “There’re some funny things about Danny Sage. I’ve been thinking about him and I don’t think I’d trust him very far.”
“That was damn funny the way he let us down all the way into the mine,” Sam speculated. “He said he’d drop us just a few feet — out of the range of the bullets.”
“That’s one of the things that keeps sticking in my mind. All right, suppose Joe Cotter won. He doesn’t like us, but he’s a cop. It’s his duty to try to arrest us. But does he really want to arrest us? He’s in this Silver Tombstone business up to his neck... Remember what Tompkins said.”
Sam exclaimed. “Say, there’s the bird knows his way around this mine. Didn’t he say he’d explored down here for two years?”
“Yes. He ought to know these shafts and tunnels pretty well. But he’s over in California.”
“Maybe not — Joe Cotter and the girl were there, and they’re here today.”
“That’s one of the questions I was going to ask her — how she happened to show up here with Joe Cotter. They were supposed to be on opposite sides. There was something about her I didn’t tell you, Sam, something that happened in the hotel in Hollywood... while you were following Charles Ralston down to the morgue... She came to see me. And she left a few minutes before the cops broke in.”
“She squealed on you?”
“That’s what I thought at the time. It made me sore... because she hadn’t acted like that while she was in the room with me.”
“What do you mean — like that?”
Johnny cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact, she was, ah, quite friendly.”
“How friendly?”
“I kissed her.”
“Yeah?” The tone was an invitation for additional revelations. Despite the seriousness of the moment Johnny couldn’t help chuckling. “That’s all. I made more or less of a date for that evening with her, but after the cops showed up I figured she’d put the finger on me. Maybe she did. I don’t know. But if we ever...” His voice broke off. Then suddenly he inhaled sharply. “Sam!” he cried softly. “Did you see something... a light?”
Sam was startled. “A light?”
“Give me a lift.”
Quickly Sam caught Johnny about the waist and raised him toward the ceiling. Johnny cracked his head on the roof, then stiffened in Sam’s grasp.
“There is a light, Sam,” he said. “Pretty far off, but it’s moving. Let me down...”
Sam lowered Johnny quickly to the floor and the latter leaped forward. He hit the cave-in, but in view of what he had seen, began groping upwards quickly. He exclaimed again. “This cave-in isn’t all the way to the ceiling, Sam. The light’s beyond it — the tunnel continues. Let’s see if we can’t get over this...”
Sam was already at his side, his fingers tearing away at the earth. They worked at terrific speed for a moment or two, digging like gophers. Then they had a space large enough at the top for even Sam to crawl through.
A moment later they were in the tunnel on the other side of the cave-in. But the light had gone.
“I don’t care,” Johnny said, doggedly. “I saw it — straight ahead, three or four hundred feet.”
“Maybe we should’ve yelled.”
“I thought of that.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“I thought we’d better play it this way. Come on...”
They proceeded swiftly down the tunnel, arms again locked, hands stretched out to ward themselves off the tunnel walls. They traveled a hundred paces, two hundred, then hit a solid wall. But a tunnel cut off at right angles and at the end of it — was a streak of yellow light.
Sam and Johnny broke into a run. As they neared the yellow light it became brighter and suddenly bursting around a turn in the tunnel they saw ahead of them — suspended from the ceiling — a lighted electric bulb!
“We’re saved!” Sam babbled.
“Maybe,” said Johnny. “But this isn’t the Silver Tombstone — they didn’t have electric power there.”
“I don’t care what it is, but let’s get out of here... Help!” The last word was yelled at the top of his lungs. The response was immediate.
“Who’s there?” cried a voice.
“Here!” replied Johnny.
A man popped out of a cubicle, stared at Johnny and Sam.
“What the hell!”
“Where are we?” Johnny asked.
“Don’t you know?”
“We got lost in the Silver Tombstone...”
“The Silver Tombstone!” cried the other man. “This is the Hansonville mine... how could you get lost in the Silver Tombstone and show up here?”
“That I don’t know. But we’ve been wandering around in the Silver Tombstone for hours...” Johnny cleared his throat. “What time is it?”
The man pulled out a big nickeled watch. “ ’Bout four.”
“In the afternoon?”
“Morning. Don’t you — know?”
“I didn’t have the slightest idea. That means we were wandering around more than twelve hours.” Johnny turned, looked over his shoulder. “Isn’t there a shift working here?”
“Not any more. We on’y got a day shift going now. I’m sort of a watchman... although I don’t know what there is to watch. Boss’s orders, though.”
“Who came by a few minutes ago?”
“Are you kidding?”
“No. We saw a light a few minutes ago. A moving light. That’s how we happened to come here.”
The face of the watchman showed worry. “Ain’t no one down here this time of night except myself.” He hesitated. “And you fellows.” Then he added, “I hope.”
“There was a woman with us in the Silver Tombstone,” Johnny said. “We lost her in the darkness.”
The watchman suddenly backed away. “Look, fellows, I’m only the watchman here. I don’t know anything... about anything.”
Johnny nodded. “How do we get out of here?”
“The elevator,” said the watchman. “This way...” He walked swiftly ahead of Johnny and Sam, made a sharp right turn and brought up against a wire cage. He pressed a button.
“It’ll be down in a minute.”
“What about upstairs? Anyone on watch there?”
The watchman hesitated, then added, “Old Byron.”
The elevator shaft was already whining and a moment later a closed elevator slid to a stop before the grilled door. The door opened automatically. Johnny and Sam stepped into the elevator, waved to the watchman.
Johnny reached for a button inside the elevator, but before his finger touched it, the door closed and the elevator began moving upwards.
“Something screwy in this place,” Sam Cragg muttered.
“The words out of my mouth,” said Johnny.
“The ghost down there — it couldn’t have been Helen Walker?”
Johnny’s forehead wrinkled. “If so, Question One: where’d she get a light? Number Two: why go flitting around the tunnels when she could come forward like us?”
The elevator began slowing up and suddenly came to an abrupt halt. A grilled door rose and Johnny and Sam stepped out of the elevator, to face a grizzled, astonished man who was holding a very capable-looking sawed-off shotgun.
“What the...?” he began.
“What the hell!” Johnny shot out. “My name’s Fletcher; this is Sam Cragg. And how are you...?”
The shotgun pointed at Johnny’s stomach. “Where’d you come from?” Old Byron demanded.
“Downstairs. The six hundred foot level. We broke through from the Silver Tombstone...”