Suddenly Bud, who was in the lead, uttered a strange cry.

"What's the matter?" exclaimed d.i.c.k. "Do you see him?"

"No! But look!" went on Bud. "We have come out into a regular underground cave! It's as big as a house!"

He flashed his lantern around in a circle, and as the others came up and stood beside him, at a spot where the pa.s.sageway beside the stream widened, they saw that they had emerged into a great vault.

And as they stood there, awed and marveling, there came to them, above the rustle and whispering of the rushing waters, the sound of a human voice--it was as though someone, sorely hurt, had moaned.

"Listen!" cried d.i.c.k.

"Hold up your lanterns!" commanded Bud sharply.

As they raised them, throwing the combined light farther out across the stream that had widened into a pool in the vault, d.i.c.k uttered a cry.

"I see him! I see Nort!" yelled d.i.c.k. "There, on the rock!"

And he pointed to the huddled figure of some one on a great rock in the middle of the pool of black water, which seemed, a short distance from the inflowing stream, to be as quiet as a lake. And, as they watched in the gleam of the lights, the figure on the rock moved slightly.

"Nort! Nort!" cried d.i.c.k, and his voice was flung back in deafening echoes from the vaulted roof.

CHAPTER XXII

THE WATER GATE

While they eagerly watched, the solitary figure on the big rock in the midst of that sinister pool again moved slightly, and as it became partly erect it was seen to be Nort Shannon.

"We've found him! We've found him!" joyfully cried d.i.c.k.

"An' alive, too, if I'm any judge," added Billee.

d.i.c.k was stripping off his coat, when Bud placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Wait a minute," advised the western lad.

"But I'm going to get him!" objected the brother. "I'm going to save Nort!"

"Maybe it isn't safe, and we may be able to save him in another way,"

suggested Bud. "I say, Nort," he called. "Are you hurt?"

How eagerly they all waited for the answer, after the echo of Bud's voice had ceased reverberating in the big cave!

"Yes--I--I'm all right," came the faint answer across the silent pool.

"I don't know exactly how I got here. Something hit me on the head--after I fell--fell in. I reckon I must have floated near this rock and--and just naturally grabbed hold and--pulled myself--up!"

"That's enough! Take it easy now!" called Bud. "We're coming over to get you!"

"Sure you're not hurt?" asked d.i.c.k, his voice trembling.

"Nothing more than a b.u.mp on the head," answered Nort, his own tones stronger now. "Not half as bad as I've gotten at football," and he laughed a little--the most joyful sound any of them had heard since the sweeping away of the boy rancher.

"Well, now we've found him, the next thing is to get him over here,"

spoke Bud. "Two of us had better swim out there. This water looks to be all right," and he stooped down and tested it with his hand. "As warm as the river," he added.

"I'm going to swim out!" declared d.i.c.k, and this time, as he began to "peel," no one stopped him.

"I'll go with you," said Bud. "We'll tie the ropes around our waists and they can hold them here on sh.o.r.e. It will be better than taking a risk, using the old tires," he added, "and, while there isn't any current in the pool now, no telling what may happen."

"Sure you want the ropes," said Old Billee. "But you'd better take a tire for Nort," and they did.

"Hold hard, Nort!" called d.i.c.k, as he and Bud took off their clothes in preparation for the swim. "We're coming!"

"I'll hold hard all right," came the answer back across the pool. "And there's something hard here to hold on to, all right."

They did not then realize his meaning, but they understood, later, when they made a most amazing discovery.

In a few minutes d.i.c.k and Bud were in the water, lariats held by those on "sh.o.r.e" tied around their waists; and the two boy ranchers were swimming toward the big rock in the middle of the pool. Lanterns at the edge of this strange underground body of water gave sufficient light to enable the swimmers, and the others, to see Nort now standing on the great boulder which emerged from the midst of the black water.

It was the plan of Bud and d.i.c.k to help Nort to swim back to where the others stood, they supporting him on either side. For though Nort was a better swimmer than his brother, in his weakened condition, hit on the head as he had said, he might suddenly collapse.

So also might Bud and d.i.c.k, or there might suddenly appear a swift current in the now quiet pool--that is, quiet beyond where the stream flowed in--and in that latter event the lariats would serve to pull them all to safety.

"Gee! I thought you were a goner!" gasped d.i.c.k, as he climbed out and clasped his brother by the hand.

"I would have been, only that I floated near this rock, and managed, half unconscious as I was, to grab hold of a projection and pull myself up," Nort answered. "That water came up so fast it scared me, and I slipped right into it."

"We saw you," said Bud, sitting down on the rock to get his wind, so he might be at his best in helping Nort on the return journey.

"It was--awful!" spoke d.i.c.k simply, and then he made no further reference to his mental agony.

"Well, are you ready to go back?" asked Bud, after a pause, in which interim they had called to those across the pool that the lost lad was all right.

"I'm ready, yes," was Nort's answer. "But I'd sort of like to see what this hard lever-like object is."

"Oh, yes," spoke d.i.c.k. "You said you had something hard to hold to.

Let's have a look--if we only had a light," he added, for it was quite dark on the great rock in the midst of the black pool. The light of the lanterns did not brightly penetrate that far.

"I have some matches, in a waterproof case, if I didn't lose it out of my pocket," said Nort, feeling in his soaking trousers. "Here they are," he went on a moment later. And as his hands were drier than those of Bud or d.i.c.k, Nort opened the box and managed, after one or two failures, to strike a light.

As the little taper flared up the three boys on the rock saw, standing upright about in the centre of the large boulder a great handle, or lever, of copper. The metal gleamed dully red in the flickering light.

"What is it?" asked Bud, as Nort struck another light.

"I don't know," was the answer from Nort. "I discovered it when I was crawling about and feeling around. I thought, if worst came to worst, I could hold to this if the waters rose."