The teeth of Jerry Smith came together with a snap.  “Then the thing for us to do is to get set and wait for them to make an attack?”

“No use waiting.  When they attack it’ll be in a way that’ll give us no chance.”

“Then you figure the same as me—­we’re lost?”

“Unless we can get out before they make the attack.  In other words, Jerry, there may be something behind the dirt wall at the end of the tunnel.”

“Nonsense, Ronicky.”

“There’s got to be,” said Ronicky very soberly, “because, if there ain’t, you and me are dead ones, Jerry.  Come along and help me look, anyway.”

Jerry rose obediently and flashed on his precious pocket torch, and they went down to pass the turn and come again to the ragged wall of earth which terminated the passage.  Jerry held the torch and passed it close to the dirt.  All was solid.  There was no sign of anything wrong.  The very pick marks were clearly defined.

“Hold on,” whispered Ronicky Doone.  “Hold on, Jerry.  I seen something.”  He snatched the electric torch, and together they peered at the patch from which the dried earth had fallen.

“Queer for hardpan to break up like that,” muttered Ronicky, cutting into the surface beneath the patch, with the point of his hunting knife.  Instantly there was the sharp gritting of steel against steel.

The shout of Ronicky was an indrawn breath.  The shout of Jerry Smith was a moan of relief.

Ronicky continued his observations.  The thing was very clear.  They had dug the tunnel to this point and excavated a place which they had guarded with a steel door, but, in order to conceal the hiding place, or whatever it might be, they cunningly worked the false wall of dirt against the face of it, using clay and a thin coating of plaster as a base.

“It’s a place they don’t use very often, maybe,” said Ronicky, “and that’s why they can afford to put up this fake wall of plaster and mud after every time they want to come down here.  Pretty clever to leave that little pile of dirt on the floor, just like it had been worked off by the picks, eh?  But we’ve found ’em, Jerry, and now all we got to do is to get to the door and into whatever lies beyond.”

“We’d better hurry, then,” cried Jerry.

“How come?”

“Take a breath.”

Ronicky obeyed; the air was beginning to fill with the pungent and unmistakable odor of burning wood!

Chapter Twenty-one

The Miracle

No great intelligence was needed to understand the meaning of it.  Fernand, having trapped his game, was now about to kill it.  He could suffocate the two with smoke, blown into the tunnel, and make them rush blindly out.  The moment they appeared, dazed and uncertain, the revolvers of half a dozen gunmen would be emptied into them.

“It’s like taking a trap full of rats,” said Ronicky bitterly, “and shaking them into a pail of water.  Let’s go back and see what we can.”