Frank Merriwell's Pursuit Part 14

"Thank Heaven!" murmured Inza, on the verge of collapsing.

"Where is that Indian?" cried Frank. "I cannot leave him alone to face those men."

"No leave him," said a voice, as Red Ben came leaping out from the cave.

"Him here. Back up, keep um odders front of gun all time. They come now prit' quick. Go, Merriwell, with gal. Ben stop um here."

He sought cover near the mouth of the cave, urging Merry to get Inza away. Then came one of the baffled villains hurrying from the cave. A spout of flame leaped from Red Ben's rifle and the report awoke the mountain echoes and started a few loose pebbles rolling on the steep slope above them.

The pursuer dropped just outside the mouth of the cave. If others were close behind him, they halted instantly, not caring to show themselves and share his fate.

Frank had lifted Inza and carried her through the brush and shrubbery.

As he emerged he found himself face to face with several men, and his heart bounded when the voice of Hodge joyously shouted his name. With Hodge was Bruce Browning, Belmont Bland, and others.

"Merry, you've found her--you've rescued her!" burst delightedly from Hodge.

"Listen!" gasped Belmont Bland. "What is that sound?"

On the steeps above there was a murmuring movement, and, looking upward, they seemed to see the mountain stirring slightly in the moonlight. The rushing murmur grew louder, and pebbles began to rattle amid the bowlders and ledges near at hand.

"A landslide!" shouted Frank, horrified. "Flee for your lives!"

As he uttered the words he saw Red Ben come leaping like a deer from the shrubbery.

"Follow!" cried the Indian as he pa.s.sed them, and fled along the side of the mountain.

What ensued was like a terrible nightmare to Merriwell. He remembered lifting Inza bodily and running for their lives with her in his arms.

Pebbles and small stones rained about him, while the rushing murmur grew louder and louder. Beneath his feet at one time the whole mountain side seemed sliding into the valley. A great bowlder, weighing many tons, went bounding and crashing past them like a living thing seeking escape from the awful peril. Small trees were slipping and moving toward the valley.

On and on Frank raced, straining every nerve. Not one of his companions was burdened like him, yet not one of them made greater speed in the effort to escape. His exertions were almost superhuman. It seemed that the knowledge of Inza's awful peril actually lifted him over every obstacle.

Finally some one clutched and stopped him. He found it was Red Ben, who said:

"All right now. Mountain him no run down hill here."

It was true Frank had escaped from the track of the landslide and had brought his sweetheart to safety. Behind them the avalanche of earth, and stones, and timber was heaping itself on the tiny plateau and pouring over the brink of the cliff in a cascade that thundered into the valley below. All around the rocky slopes and wooded steeps were roaring back the sounds like monsters awakened from peaceful slumber and enraged at being thus disturbed.

All this had been brought about by the shot fired by Red Ben. That small concussion had started rolling a single pebble that was the keystone.

Recent rains had loosened that pebble. Others followed it, and a bit of earth began to slip downward. This dislodged larger stones, and soon the landslide was under way.

It ceased almost as quickly as it began. The grumbling, roaring mountains continued raging for a few moments, and then they, too, became silent. The bright moonlight revealed the change wrought by the landslide, and it told those who had escaped that the mouth of the cave that had been the hiding place of Del Norte and his companions was closed forever by tons of earth, burying the wretches in a living tomb.

Slowly Frank's friends gathered around him. They were all there; all had escaped. Of the entire party Belmont Bland was the only one missing. One remembered having seen Bland running blindly toward the brink of the precipice, apparently having forgotten its existence. No human eye ever beheld him afterward. If he did not rush blindly over the precipice, it is likely he halted on the brink and turned to escape in another direction when it was too late, being swept over by the rushing landslide.

At the foot of that precipice the body of Pat O'Toole was also buried where Frank had left it when he lost no time in climbing the mountain side.

CHAPTER XI.

BURIED ALIVE!

As Frank and his party left the mountain side there remained two men buried alive in the cave whose mouth was closed by the landslide!

"Where are you, Del Norte?" cried one of the imprisoned men, in a gasping, frightened voice when the roar and rumble of the landslide had ceased, and they began to realize their terrible position.

"I am here," answered the other. "What can we do, Ridgeway?"

"Do? Why, we can die like dogs! There is nothing else for it. You're sure there is no other way out of this cave?"

"No other way. Perhaps we can dig out."

"Not in a thousand years! What have we to dig with--our bare hands?"

"I have my knife--the knife with which I was going to cut out the tongue of that cursed gringo, Merriwell! Why didn't I do it?"

"You know why. Red Ben went back on us, may the fiends take the redskin cur! He helped Merriwell get away with the girl. When Sears tried to follow the Indian shot him, and he's buried out there somewhere beneath that landslide. But he's better off than we are, for he is dead, and we must die! I can't die, Del Norte! I'm not ready to die! I'm not fit to die!"

Then the poor wretch began to weep and pray in the utmost anguish of soul.

Del Norte seemed cowed. He had burned many matches in order that by their faint glow he might examine the great ma.s.s of earth and stone that was piled on and crushed into the place that had once been the entrance to the cave. He had seen that a mighty bowlder was blocking the greater part of the former entrance. That stone alone would be enough to imprison them hopelessly, but the sounds of the landslide which had made the mountain roar and shake had satisfied him that the bowlder was held in place by a ma.s.s of earth and timber through which, with the best implements, it would be impossible to dig in a week.

"Merriwell has triumphed!" muttered the Mexican. "He will have no more trouble from me."

"Fiends take you!" snarled Ridgeway. "Why did you ever cross my path, and tempt me to such a death with your money? For the love of Heaven, light another match!"

"I have but three more."

"Can't you find a brand from the fire? Let's have some light! We had torches. Where are they?"

"They were extinguished by the rush of air when the slide took place.

I've tried to find them, but failed. I'll try again."

"I'm going mad--mad!" groaned Ridgeway.

Del Norte began to search for the extinguished torches. After a time, during which his companion wept, prayed, and cursed by turns, he discovered one of them.

Then he carefully struck one of his matches. The extinguished torch was a piece of resinous pine, and it burned up quickly, giving a flaring light and sending up a wavering stream of black smoke.

By the light the two men gazed into each other's ghastly faces. Their eyes were distended with horror. Their mouths were dry and their lips drawn back from their gleaming teeth. They looked like beasts.

"Curse you, Porfias del Norte!" snarled Ridgeway. "It was you who brought me to this!"

"Bah! It was your greed for the money I paid you that brought you here."

"Had I not met you----"