Unexplored!

The rain water, charged with the carbonic acid gas of the atmosphere, seeps in from the surface and falls drop by drop. Each slow drop remains long enough upon the ceiling to deposit some of its dissolved lime in a ring to which the next succeeding drop adds another layer.

In time this ring lengthens into a pipe-stem of soft lime. It fills and crystallizes, thickens and elongates, as the constant drip, evaporating from the outside, deposits more and more of the lime. Thus these stone icicles are formed, sometimes an inch a year.

At the same time the drops that fall to the floor, solidifying one at a time, build up a slender pyramid beneath, – a stalagmite, – which reaches higher and higher as its stalactite hangs lower and lower. In time these two formations meet in a slender pillar, the pillar thickens through the same slow process and if the pillars stand close enough together, – as where the drip follows a long rock fissure, – the pillars will eventually join in a solid partition.

This dripstone, as the material of the formation is termed, began as soft carbonate of lime; it hardens into gypsum or, sometimes, alabaster, or calcite.

The boy peered once more into the carved gallery, waiting till an up-flare of the dying fire again illumined the fantastic ceiling, whose fairy architecture gleamed opalescent in the orange glow. He thought of the old fairy tales of gnomes hammering on their golden anvils in their jeweled caves in the hearts of the mountains, and wondered if such lore had not arisen from the fact of just such cave formations, coupled with the echoes the slightest sound set to reverberating. After all, most folk tales had some foundation.

Once these Mexicans were captured and the forest fire brought under control, he meant to ask Norris if their camping expedition might not include an exploration of some of the caves he had assured them honeycombed this part of the Sierra.

He little dreamed in what fantastic fashion his wish was to come about, as he lay there waiting till he could start his ride for help!

Nor did Pedro, drowsing, exhausted, beside him, dream of the test that was to be made of his courage while he remained behind. He seemed so fagged that Ted did not even wake him, when at last he deemed it time to sally forth.

Ted loved nothing better than a good horse.

The plainsman, he used to argue, may have his twin six, the airman his ship, but for the outdoor man, give him the comrade who can take the mountain trails, the needle carpeted forest floor, the unbridged streams, the glacier polished slopes.

The black horse wore the high Visalia saddle, against which his rider could rest on steep grades. It would be more dangerous, should the animal throw him, though of course the high horn would help him to pull leather should need arise. He had lengthened the stirrups, Western fashion, till his long legs dangled easily and he could have raised himself scarce an inch above the saddle by standing in his stirrups. His long, lean legs would give him a good hold where the going was rough, and if he had only a quirt, or even a pair of drop-shank spurs, he would have felt confident of making time. (For he knew how to use the spurs so that they would not torture his animal.) He regretted that the mysterious owner had not fitted the poor brute with the old spade bit, for should the horse fall, on the uneven ground, it would be likely to cut his mouth badly. He had once seen an animal bleed to death from such a hurt. Well, they must not fall!

Mechanically he opened the reins, as was his habit: – His own horse had been trained to hitch to the ground, and all he had to do when he dismounted in a hurry was to drop rein. He was glad to find that the saddle was rim fire, (or double-rigged), as it would stay in place, no matter what acrobatics they might be forced to perform. So far, so good!

With right hand on the saddle horn, left grasping rein and mane, he swung up, and before ever he touched leather, they were off.

Would his mount prove broncho? Had his probably Mexican owner uglied his disposition? That remained to be discovered. And on that detail would depend much of the success of his race for help. For with Norris at the far end of the ridge, there would be several hours of tough going, he surmised.

“Yes, sir, you shore gotta slope some!” he told the mustang, in imitation of the cow-men. “Or those Greasers will just naturally fade out of the landscape.”

As the night wind blew the smoke down canyon, he could very nearly tell his way, and the time as well, by the stars. Being early in July, he knew that in the constellation of Hercules, almost directly above, the hero’s head pointed South. It was something Norris had told them one night when they had to travel late to find a fit camping spot. The crest of the ridge lay South, and along the crest he should find more open going. He would then have to veer to the West. As Venus rose brilliantly in the East, he knew he had now about two hours and a half till sunrise.

Breasting the wind, he headed around the twisting stems of unyielding manzanita, then up, straight South, over slide rock and fallen tree trunks, turning aside for only the larger bowlders. The mountain-bred horse was lithe as a greyhound, as he alternately climbed and slid, or made wide leaps over the uneven slope.

The ridge attained, however, he found it harder going than he had imagined, by reason of the broken shale, weathered by the frost of unnumbered winters. But just on the other side, – that furthest from the fire zone, – stretched a smooth granite slope, where the going would be unobstructed. But these smooth slopes, bed of that prehistoric river of ice, slanted slowly but surely to the cascading mountain stream whose roar now assailed his ears. One slip on that smooth surface and his horse would never stop till he had reached the rapids! The boy wondered if the animal were sufficiently sure-footed. The answer would mean, at the very least, the difference between a broken leg and a sound one, for the boy speeding to secure help in the capture of the fire bugs. But there seemed a fighting chance, and he would take it.

At intervals the granite was blocked out by cracks, and he found the slight unevenness of a crack lent his mount a surer footing. At times it was fairly level and he ventured a gallop; again it was precarious even at a walk.

Suddenly a monotonous “chick-chick-chick” buzzed beneath their feet. The horse leapt violently to one side, – just in time to evade the coiled spring of four feet of green-black rattlesnake, on whose sinister form he had all but trod. By that instant leap he had avoided the speedy death of the injected virus of the stroke. Ted’s heart was in his mouth.

On – on – on he urged the black. It became mechanical; he ceased to think. Exhausted alike by his long vigil and the strain he had been under, he now sat his horse in a daze, just keeping his nose generally Westward, while he skirted the crest of the ridge. He felt half numb as he rounded the end of the crest where Norris was to have been stationed. To his stupefaction, the fire fighters had completed their trench and gone!

Where could they be? Probably back at the camp, which he had skirted by this detour, never dreaming he would find any one but Rosa there. Well, – he was “outa luck!” Back he went the way he had come, till he thought it time to climb the ridge. A flare of cook-fire through the graying dawn showed him where to head, and the huge sun was just slipping blood-red through the smoke gloom as he took the last log at a leap and dropped off beside the moving figures.

The men were all there, – as was Ranger Radcliffe, whom the DeHaviland had evidently returned with fresh supplies. It took but few words to acquaint them with the situation.

By the time Ted had drank a quart of coffee with his breakfast, he was able to pull himself together again and lead the possé to the hidden cave mouth. The Ranger would have to be the one to go, to make the arrest, and he deputized Ace to help him. That meant leaving Norris to head the firemen. (It never occurred to any of them that they would not be right back with Pedro and the Mexicans. The foam-flecked horse Ted left to Rosa’s care.)

The cave mouth accomplished, Radcliffe entered first, with revolver cocked, though Ace almost trod on his heels. Ted staggered after with a flaming pine knot flickering in his almost nerveless hand.

The cavern was absolutely empty!

To Pedro, left in the cave mouth to watch the Mexicans, the night had been the crucial test.

He had been asleep when Ted departed, while the Mexicans had slept within the cave. He awoke to find the three dark visages bending over him, their verbal fireworks hissing about his ears. At first “caballo” was all he could make of it, – (the horse). Then as Sanchez the stout, soared rhetorically above the others, he gathered that they dared not leave him and they could not carry him. “El Diablo!” How much simpler to thrust a dagger between his ribs. “Muerte! – Presto!” But no, wait! For the time being he would walk between them carrying two extra torches. There must be another exit to the cave, but could the burros make it with the packs? Try it they must, for this way their choice lay between the fire fighters and the flames. The doomed forest still glowed red and black down canyon, and with the morning light, the wind veered till the smoke assailed them chokingly. There was no time to be lost.

Never for an instant dreaming that Pedro understood, they gave him the torches he was to bear, and started into the depths of the cavern. And the boy? Too frightened at first to have spoken had he tried to, he had the wit to see that protest would be useless. They were three to one, armed, and desperate, and they counted him a likely witness to their incendiarism.

Besides, now that the wind had changed, he could not have gone ten paces without having been blinded by the smoke till he could not see where he was heading. This side of the canyon was going to go like tinder, too. Besides, – this came later, – how could he allow the fire bugs to get away? His job was to keep tabs on them, and that he would now have an exceptional opportunity to do, he cheered himself.

At first the flare of the torches revealed merely the cavern of onyx stalactites he had seen the night before. This formation wound in a narrowing labyrinth until they made a sharp turn to the left. Presently they came to a pit of inky water, around which they had to skirt on a sloping shelf. The burros could not make it and they left them there. Either, Pedro argued, they meant to return that way or else they had other supplies awaiting them. But now they could no longer smell the smoke. From somewhere came pure air, damp and refreshingly chilly. The sounds of the outer world were cut off completely. On and on they wandered as in a dream. Pedro began surreptitiously pinching himself to make sure he was not having some weird nightmare.

They came to a grotto that might have been brown marble, whose curious carvings he had no time to study. From this they had to crawl on hands and knees through an opening into another twisting passageway, floored with muddy water and barely high enough for them to stand erect. Their voices echoed and reechoed. Then came arches of stalactites almost meeting the stalagmites beneath them, through which they edged their way as through a frozen forest.

This opened into a vast cavern hung as with icicles of alabaster, which their torch light warmed to onyx.

“If these fellows weren’t so free with their knives,” Pedro told himself, “it would be an adventure worth having. But they certainly have too much dynamite in their dispositions to suit me,” – for the Mexicans were now quarreling among themselves. The boy and the old man were for turning back before they lost themselves, – for at every turn there were branching ways.

But Sanchez, the heavy-handed, was for going on, – and on they went, shivering in the unaccustomed chill.

Pedro wondered what the rescue party would do when they found them gone. If only he could leave some sign of his whereabouts! Could he drop his handkerchief at one turning of the ways, his hat at another, without detection? Or was it already too late? Why had he not thought of that before? – Tucking one torch into the crook of the other elbow for a moment, he dropped his bandanna as again they took the left-hand of two turns.

But now their little flare of light revealed a blind passageway. The water-worn rock had been hollowed out by some eddying pool, no doubt, while the main stream had flown on past. How he wished he knew more of cave formations! Should he find opportunity to escape, how would he ever find his way out again?

Retracing their steps, they took the right hand turn. Here was another high roofed vault, – he could not see how high, he could only guess from the reverberation of their voices, – whose stalactites had become great pillars that gleamed yellowly. The floor sloped toward them till they had stiff climbing. On one wall was a limestone formation like a frozen cataract. And thrust into the wall beside it he saw a torch stick. Who had left it there, and what ages ago, he wondered? In this cavern some of the stalactites hung as huge as tree trunks, and had not Sanchez bade the others keep an extra eye on him, the lad might easily have hid behind one.

Some of these huge pillars were cracked with age, and again the thought occurred to him that if only he might insert himself into one of the cracks, – a few were all of a foot in width, – he could easily escape detection in that uncertain light. But now he was under surveillance every instant. Besides, (tardy thought), was he not pledged to keep an eye on the villains? He smiled through his fears at the recollection that they, not he, were captive.

Meantime Ace and Radcliffe, (leaving Ted to sleep off his exhaustion in the cave mouth), were examining the onyx cavern and the ground outside for some sign as to what had happened, and which way Pedro and the Mexicans had gone. Radcliffe had his electric flash, and at the turn of the winding passageway discovered scratches on the sandstone floor where the burros had left hoof marks. But had they taken the turn to the right or that to the left? There were hoof prints both going and coming, in each passageway. Which had been made the more recently? They could not tell.

Ace hoped that the Ranger would propose each following a different direction, but instead, Radcliffe remarked that they ought to have brought a ball of twine to unwind as they went, as people had been known to get lost in unknown caves, and stay lost for days. The best alternative was to make a rough map of their turnings in his note-book.

They advanced along the right hand passageway, whose breath seemed like that of another world from that of the parched mountain side, – cool and moist and wonderfully exhilarating. Had it not been for his uneasiness as to Pedro’s whereabouts, Ace would have enjoyed this expedition into the unexplored. His was a nature that craved the tang of adventure, even more than most. It was one of the things that had led him to take up geology, for in the U. S. Geological Survey his life would lead him, likely, to far places.

He wished, though, that Ted were with them. A good pal certainly doubles one’s enjoyments.

They had gone what seemed like miles, (though cave miles are deceptive, so completely is one cut off from space and time), bearing always to the right, when Radcliffe’s light suddenly burned out, leaving them in primeval darkness. At first breath they tried to laugh at their predicament, then the utter blackness seemed to press upon them till it suffocated, and Ace suppressed a sudden desire to scream. His panic moment was dissipated by Radcliffe’s discovery of a bit of candle. Ace had, of course, that most important part of a camper’s equipment, a waterproof match-box, linked to his belt, and in it a few matches. But even then it meant going back the way they had come, for without a good light they could do nothing. Perhaps it was just as well, for they were bound on no hour’s adventure, and should have brought food as well. How Radcliffe wished he had his acetylene lamp!

To their surprise they found Norris at the cave mouth trying to arrange his coat under the sleeping Ted. And around him lay the coiled lariat he had taken from the saddle-horn of Ted’s recent mount, also three canteens, some cooked food, and a supply of hard candles from the fire crew supplies. There were also the boys’ sweaters, – Radcliffe, of course, had his woolen uniform, – and to cap the climax, a ball of twine and the Ranger’s pet lamp, with its tin of carbide powder.

To their amazed query Norris explained that he had explored dozens of caves in his time, including some hundreds of miles of that honeycomb formation that underlies a portion of Kentucky, to say nothing of the caverns of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, the Black Hills of South Dakota, and the Ozarks. Of the caves of California, however, he as yet knew nothing.

Had he not been needed to head the fire crew, he would have loved nothing better than to have gone with them.

“I knew this was a cave region,” he told them as they ate and refreshed themselves before going back into the black depths – for they had been gone several hours, it seemed. “Fissured limestone – I noticed it yesterday when we were down here trying to backfire. Then what feeds the Kawa? Not these little flood creeks that dry up almost before the spring floods are over. Where does all that snow water go to? Some underground passageway, of course. It seeps through the porous rock to subterranean channels. By the way, I see there are tracks of muddy feet inside here, and your feet are dry! The mud must have been left by the Mexicans.”

“That’s a fact!” exclaimed Radcliffe. “Ace, did you notice any mud along that passageway? Then we surely took the wrong turn.”

“Not necessarily,” said Norris. “They might have come from some muddy cavern, but gone back another way. However, I was going to give you a little idea of the probable layout of a cave. This one, if – as I suspect – it feeds the Kawa – likely descends to other levels, till the lowest one is very nearly on that of the river. Seeping through, here and there, the rains and melting snows probably collect into a stream.”

“Wish you could go with us, old chap,” said the Ranger. “But–”

“You’ll get along all right, with these things,” sighed Norris, “and if you don’t show up again within a few hours, we’ll follow your twine,” and he tied one end of the cord ball to a manzanita bush, handing the ball to Ace. At that moment Ted awoke and insisted that he join them. Norris reluctantly returned to the fire crew.