The Mystery Of The Moaning Cave Part 9

He had been sitting there talking to himself for over a half-hour, he guessed, and during all that time he had had the feeling that eyes were watching him. He knew that it was probably just his imagination, but it was a weird feeling anyway.

To occupy his mind, Bob began to read the book about Moaning Valley. He read the part that told of the mine shafts being sealed, and then he read further. Suddenly he sat up very straight.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed in a whisper.

He had come to a pa.s.sage about Old Ben Jackson and his partner, Waldo Turner. The book said that Old Ben and his partner lived on a ridge right next to Devil Mountain and that they had dug one of the mine shafts into the mountain. Their shaft had been sealed up with the others, but Old Ben and Waldo had refused to leave. They insisted they would keep prospecting for gold - and diamonds!

Bob frowned. He was sure that Jupiter, in his eagerness to get started on his plan, had not read this far in the book. If Jupe had read that Old Ben thought there were diamonds around Devil Mountain, he would have mentioned it.

In the growing darkness Bob was suddenly worried. Jupiter thought that the moaning might be caused by the reopening of one of the old shafts. Old Ben and his partner had actually dug such a shaft themselves, and they probably knew El Diablo's Cave better than anyone else, after living right next to it for so many years. It would be simple for them to reopen a shaft.

Then Bob thought about something else. He remembered how Old Ben had surprised them the previous night. They had been inside an inner inner cavern, yet Old Ben had claimed he was pa.s.sing by cavern, yet Old Ben had claimed he was pa.s.sing by outside outside the cave and heard them! Suddenly, Bob realized that this would have been practically impossible. The distance was too great. Old Ben must have been inside the cave when he heard them, which meant that he had lied to them. the cave and heard them! Suddenly, Bob realized that this would have been practically impossible. The distance was too great. Old Ben must have been inside the cave when he heard them, which meant that he had lied to them.

Alarmed now, Bob dropped below the trail and hurriedly made a third dummy from the shirt, pants and sombrero that had originally been intended to represent him. Carefully, he pushed it into place beside the other two. In the dim twilight the three dummies should convince any observer that the boys were still seated there.

Then he crept through the underbush until he felt it was safe to stand up and walk. He kept a good distance from the road, for he did not want to be seen. He felt it was very important that he get back to tell the Daltons what Pete and Jupe were doing in the cave. If Old Ben had actually found a diamond mine, they could be in real danger!

Bob hurried through the night as fast as he could with his injured leg and the difficult terrain. Before he had gone more than a few hundred yards he heard a soft sound in the night. It was a car driving slowly along the dirt road-without lights! It stopped no more than fifty feet from where Bob crouched.

A shadowy figure got out and walked rapidly towards Devil Mountain. The dark shape was dressed completely in black, and was all but invisible in the night. It quickly vanished.

Bob crept up to the parked car. It had a Nevada licence plate.

Deep inside Devil Mountain, Pete and Jupe continued to track the moaning sound.

After the first tunnel, they had come to another cavern and had again used their candles to locate the pa.s.sage out. In the third cavern, smaller than any of the others, they had found three pa.s.sages with air blowing through them. They decided not to split up. Instead, they searched each pa.s.sage together.

The first tunnel ran straight ahead for quite a distance, then made a sudden, sharp turn.

"It's heading back towards the ocean, Jupe," Pete observed.

Jupiter frowned. "I don't think we want to go that way. I'm sure the moaning sound comes from closer to the valley side." He checked his compa.s.s. "We should go east or north-east, I think."

"This tunnel is heading southwest."

The boys retraced their steps and tried the second pa.s.sage. Soon it, too, curved away towards the southwest. Once again they went back to the cavern. Pete was becoming impatient.

"Golly, Jupe, we could walk around in here forever!"

"Yes, but, I'm sure we're on the right track. The moaning gets louder every time we move east."

Reluctantly Pete followed him into the third pa.s.sage. The air current was strong and the moaning much louder. The tunnel went straight east! Jupiter pushed ahead as fast as was safe with only their flashlights. Suddenly both boys stopped in their tracks.

There was a gaping hole in the left wall, where a side pa.s.sage joined the tunnel they were in.

"Gosh," Pete said, "that's the first side tunnel we've seen."

"Yes," Jupiter replied, examining it with his flashlight, "and it's man-made - an old mine shaft that wasn't sealed at this end. Pete, look!"

The flame of Jupiter's candle was blowing strongly outward.

"What does that mean, Jupe?"

"It means," Jupiter whispered excitedly, "that somewhere down there is a third opening to the outside! Probably one of the old mine entrances has been secretly opened."

"Then why didn't the sheriff find it? Or Mr. Dalton?"

"I'm not sure, Pete," Jupiter admitted, "but-" His eyes suddenly widened as he listened to something.

Then Pete heard it, too - a faint sound of digging.

"Come on," Jupiter whispered, and started into the new pa.s.sage.

As Pete prepared to follow, he suddenly became aware of the sound of footsteps behind him.

"Jupe," he quavered weakly.

Standing there, close behind them, was a small, thin man with burning dark eyes and a proud face - the face of little more than a boy. He wore a black sombrero, a short black jacket, a high-necked black shirt, and tight black trousers that flared at the bottom above shiny black boots.

He was the young man in the picture Professor Walsh had shown them at the ranch. El Diablo!

And he held a pistol in his left hand.

Chapter 12.

Caught!

"YIPES!" cried Pete.

El Diablo pointed his pistol at Pete and made a sharp cutting motion in the air with his other hand.

"He wants us to be silent," Jupiter said, a little shakily.

El Diablo nodded. His boyish face showed no expression at all. He motioned with the pistol that he wanted the boys to walk ahead of him in the direction from which they had come, away from the sound of digging.

Reluctantly the two boys obeyed. They retraced their steps through the dark tunnel until they came to a cavern, where El Diablo motioned them to the right.

They walked and walked, along pa.s.sages and through caverns. Although Pete knew by his watch that they had travelled for less than five minutes, it seemed more like five hours as he plodded along behind Jupiter. El Diablo, with his pistol, stayed just behind them.

"Halt!"

The command came sharply just as Pete and Jupiter entered another cavern. It was the first word El Diablo had spoken and it had a m.u.f.fled, hollow sound.

The boys stopped. This cavern was smaller than most they had been in, and it had a gloomy, dank atmosphere.

"There!" El Diablo commanded in his m.u.f.fled voice.

The bandit gestured towards a very narrow opening in the cavern wall. Jupiter and Pete looked at each other grimly, but there was nothing they could do. They marched into the narrow tunnel, with El Diablo close behind. They had taken only about ten steps when they came to a mound of rocks that completely blocked the pa.s.sage. A dead-end! Pete and Jupiter turned in dismay.

El Diablo's face was as rigid as stone. With a motion of his pistol, he indicated that they were to stand along the left wall. Then he quickly bent over and rolled a large rock away from the mound.

"Come!" the m.u.f.fled voice commanded.

The boys walked to the hole that had been opened in the end of the pa.s.sage, and Pete peered in. He saw nothing but a black hole. Before he could shine his flashlight inside, a strong shove sent him sprawling into the dark opening.

Pete landed hard on a stone floor. Something struck him in the ribs, and then he heard the stone being rolled back. Pete lay in total darkness behind the wall of rock.

"Pete?" It was Jupiter's voice beside him.

"I'm here," Pete answered, "but I wish I wasn't."

"I'm afraid he's walled us in," Jupe whispered in the darkness.

"I'm just plain afraid," Pete said.

None At the edge of Moaning Valley, Bob was hurrying towards The Crooked-Y Ranch.

Behind him, as if to spur him on, the valley continued to moan.

"Aaaaaahhhhhhhh-oooooooo-oooooo-oo! " "

Bob knew this meant that Jupiter's plan had worked. Pete and Jupe must be inside El Diablo's Cave by this time, yet the moaning had not stopped. After leading the book, however, Bob was almost sorry that the plan had succeeded. If his hunch was right, if Old Ben and his partner had something to do with the moaning sound, then Pete and Jupe could be in trouble.

Then there was the man in the car with the Nevada licence plate. Who was he? Bob had seen only a dark shape walking towards Devil Mountain. He had waited for a time near the car, but the man had not come back. Bob had finally decided that too much was happening for the boys to carry on alone.

He hurried on towards the ranch. Once Moaning Valley was behind him, Bob decided to risk walking on the road, where he could make better time. Gradually the moaning faded in the distance. Then he heard a new sound behind him. A car was coming fast along the narrow dirt road. Just in time, Bob jumped for the cover of the bushes at the side of the road.

As the car roared past, he could not make out the face of the man bent close over the steering wheel, but he saw a black sombrero on the head. He also saw that it was the car with the Nevada licence plate!

Alarmed, Bob hurried back on to the road. The Nevada car had been in a hurry. What had happened inside Devil Mountain? With a sinking feeling, Bob began to trot as fast as his injured leg would let him. He had to get to the ranch house right away. Maybe even Jupiter had gone too far this time.

"Uf-ooof!"

Bob had b.u.mped headlong into a man who appeared suddenly in the road. Strong hands gripped his shoulders. He looked up into the long, scarred face of the man with the black eye patch.

None Jupiter and Pete crouched in the darkness behind the wall of rock. From time to time they could still hear the moaning of the cave, distant and faint.

"Can you see anything?" Pete whispered.

"Not a thing. We're totally walled in, and-Hey, are we crazy or something!" Suddenly Jupiter started to laugh.

"Gosh, Jupe, what's so funny?" Pete whispered.

"We're whispering," Jupiter said, "and sitting in the dark, but there's no one to hear us and we have our flashlights!"

The boys switched on their flashlights and grinned a little sheepishly at each other.

Then Pete shone his light on the wall of rock.

"Maybe no one can hear us, and we have our lights, but how do we get out?" Pete asked.

Jupiter, as usual, refused to be discouraged. "First we'll see if we can push that big rock out. El Diablo did not appear to be exceptionally strong, yet he moved the stone with ease."

Pete tried to move the stone first. It would not budge. Then Jupiter joined him, and together the two boys applied all their strength. The boulder still did not move an inch.

Panting, they finally gave up.

"He must have it wedged from the outside," Jupiter observed. "The more we push, the tighter we wedge it. He's locked us in tight."

"Great," Pete said. "What do you think. Jupe? Could he really be El Diablo? You know, the professor said he might still be alive."

"El Diablo may still be alive," Jupiter said, "but he wouldn't look like that. Remember, El Diablo would be almost a hundred years old. The man who caught us looked like El Diablo back in the 1880s!"

"Yes, I thought about that."