Unexplored!

fe led the way with his carbide lamp.

) Skirting this on the shelving ledge as had Pedro and the Mexicans, they traversed the winding passageway that led to the grotto of brown cauliflower-like encrustations.

e impression of a baronial ruin. The boys whistled simultaneously under their breath. At the far end stood a huge stone elephant,-or so it ap

, he whispered, "Wha

n't you see?-They'd be 'some fossils'! Why, if we could find just

ure going to kee

that fossils were little stone w

of plants or animals that lived, either on land or in the sea, in ancient

like a professor? I'm going to call

rged, ignoring this s

stly," amended

s and fossilized. Times when the ocean over-ran the land, they got drifted

sandstone!" i

ls that made our limestone,-like the walls of

the mud made mudstones," and he laughed ti

gh on him. "Go to the head of the class. I

anger, "this must be a topp

from the fossils that have been found, but no one locality gives it all. They have found part of the story in America and part in Africa, and parts in Europe and Asia. And from that series of fossil

e that out?" Ted

ong story. I'm no

n't pro

u can the conclusions on which astronomy, high

or myself!" sighed Ted, seating himself beside the o

challenged him. "And you know, fossils are not necessarily fish or

st

of a leaf of some prehistoric plant on sandstone, or the footprint of some antediluvian reptile. In the

that have been for

l by the time the mud has turned to stone, the bones are ossified. Of course the animal matter has all dissolved away by this time. Now if this mud that filled th

ied bones lying around, or even a footprint or leaf print in the stone,

yfully squelched him, from the van

s of babes?" And he arose a bit stiffly,-for he had had a strenuous time o

ightest sign of the fugitives, when they came to another grotto, the loveliest they had yet seen. It might have been a fairy cavern, aglitter with pure crystal. Th

en several hundred feet above. The boys were fairly awed by its beauty, while the Ranger's eyes gleamed appreciatively.

sils?" demande

or fish!-You ichthyosauru

?" asked

ans anci

rinned Ted. "I

us?" Radcliffe c

a dinosaur,

s!" commanded Radcliffe. "And perhaps Ace

emember what he told us, that day just before we lost the pack burro?-That in this part of California

. Are you fellows game for taking one way while I go back to that last turn and try the left hand passageway? Of course the instant you get wind of them, rep

s, some white as snow, some yellow as gold, and some so like maple sugar in appearance that Ace actuall

ds, as it were, turned to the left and forged ahead with his carbide lamp, treading softly as a

h scratches their feet had made. Darting back to the turn of the tunnel, where he had picked up the bandanna, he took the only choice left to him, the right hand way, with all the satisfaction of a hound on the scent. More scratches on the sandstone floor assured him that they had rea

him, and he fell down a ten foot well, landing on all fours, in Stygian blackness. And n

disclosed a cavern with muddy walls dripping above them, and to their right, an inky pool of water. The air was all aflutter with the bats they had startled from their pendant slumbers, lizards scuttled away in all directions, and a fish

ould not see, for the walls were too slippery to climb, there was not a spear of anything movable in sight on which they might gain

bumped against them and added the final to

ns. It must be on the same level they had left when they said good-by to Radcliffe, but in their panic they were completely turned around, and

is scalp prickled,-as did Ace's,-and for a little while his wits seemed befogged. Then he remembered that bed-rock advice Long Lester had once given him. When you don't

his head. When he first discovered he was off the trail, he wandered about as in a mystic maze,

in the end he had stumbled upon the trail

ck-tracked. Or better, if he had with his jack-knife made a blaze sufficiently high on some stunted tree to have seen

ked a straight course by the stars, (always provid

time, "your knowledge of cave formations might help us to find the way out of here. Gee! If thi

wiggles around a little like a river with its tributaries, though n

ributed his chum, "a w

he fissures of the surface rock, and at first they make subterranean rivers. Where you find

, all right

metimes these S

sor!" Ted clapped h

tone,-perhaps through a crack made by an earthquake or something,-they go down and wear away a deeper level. Mammoth Cave is on five levels. That leaves the upper galleries dry. Now

d Ted. "And we can follow it. That's the

we can. Thunder! I

g, why don't you wish for

belt. "Must be getting late in the day! Let's run!" And

their candles were nearly gone. "Now let's put out all but one," suggested Ted. "Just b

e had overheard enough evidence to convict all three of the Mexicans, thanks to his knowledge of the parent language, but as the desperadoes pushed farther and farther into the labyrinth, he gathered that th

was there. Was it bear or cougar? For both, he knew, took refuge in caves. The largeness of the eyes inclined him to the belief that i

spring. He was still rather far for a revolver shot, but he aimed straight between the eyes. His shot reverberated with a thousand echoes. The sounds, ear-splitting in the smoke-filled gloom,-thundered like a thousand siege guns, it seemed to Radcliffe, stalactites tumbled about his ears like crockery,

away. The Ranger had very nearly trailed them. With rolling eyes and hands that mec

an eel through a narrow opening between two columns, where the dripstone had all but closed the way into

Pedro. The result might have been expected. He stuck mid-way! And there he dangled his fat legs in an end

's reiterated discourse with his followers. And when no one came t

nishment was as huge as his attitude was undignified, and if words could have seared, Pedro would have been well scorched. But the boy only told him of an item he

thian way they could not follow. That some one was on their trail he sus

d see the glow of the setting sun in a circle of light at the end, and in a very few minutes he had poked his head and shoulders beneath an overhanging bowlder on a rock ledge. It was the Southern slope of the spur, and after a l

while down in the canyon on the other side the fire still glowed in red embers where it continued to d

ud stained clothing restored him wonderfully. (After

said Norris. "I would have before, if it hadn't been fo

Radcliffe dragge

lling with tears which she pro

ound, and fitted it into a back-pack. There was food, rope, and candles, another tube of carbide for Radcliffe

part of it as by p

from his note-book, marking a black cros

ne way as another. I reckon we can folly this yere map backwards as we

greed Norris, st

e you both. Here, Norris," and he gave the younger man his r

kin' so much about them boys I clean forgot the