Part 23 (1/2)
”No Hand ht to where Rick waited Rick took it and shone it upward to where the slide had co, but it was a yard higher than the rest of the tunnel ceiling
He calculated quickly ”If this is typical, we have rock three feet thick, ten feet wide, and twenty feet long piled up in front of us That makes six hundred cubic feet of rock”
”But it can't be typical,” Scotty disagreed ”If three feet had fallen uniformly, it wouldn't have filled the tunnel It ht over the broken timbers”
”Not a very cheerful prospect, is it?” Rick had a vision of yards of rock ahead
”I've seen happier prospects But what can we do? Keep plugging is all, and hope it doesn't take long for Dr Miller to locate us”
Rick looked at his watch ”No chance of that yet It isn't even suppertiets really worried”
Scotty chuckled gri able to take care of ourselves is not helping us, either”
”I'll never go into a place without two entrances again,” Rick promised
There was a moment's shocked silence while the boys stared at each other They spoke simultaneously
”How do you know this has only one entrance?”
”Hoe know this hasn't two entrances?”
They had never reached the end of the ht only be necessary to walk out!
”We'll go see,” Rick stated ”Right now”
”Didn't we ever ask about another entrance?” Scotty demanded
”No, now that I think of it, and no one ever said anything about it”
”Maybe they never said anything because there isn't anything to say”
”No more assumptions,” Rick said ”We can find out for ourselves Get your shi+rt on and let's go”
They quickly dressed and hiked down the long tunnel to the point they had reached when the cave-in occurred Rick paid more attention to the formation than before, and found it was easy to trace the ore vein
Pockets in the walls shohere offshoots of theout, but h the hill in one continuous tunnel
”Funny they didn't take more ore out of the top,” Scotty commented
”Looks like fairly decent stuff overhead and to the left”
”Not good enough, I guess Refining was pretty primitive in those days
Techniques are better now, but there probably isn't enough good ore here toit out”
”Look ahead,” Scotty said