Gary stood up and began to explore the ledge. There was shattered driftwood scattered along it. A cheerful thought, for the water had brought it into the cavern from outside. But how far outside? He walked forward slowly and saw that the ledge petered out. He took a staff of driftwood and probed the dark water; it was about two feet deep. He waded in and followed a bend in the cavern, testing the depth all the way. Then suddenly everything seemed clear to the eye and he waded out into a narrow slot of a canyon, if one could correctly call it that, hardly more than twenty feet wide. High, high above him was the sky, now lighted with the rising of the sun. To his right was a narrow strand, littered with dead brush and driftwood. He waded to it and walked along it. He could see fairly far ahead. Gary shivered. The deep, narrow trough seemed to penetrate into the very bowels of the Espectros.
He returned to the cavern and eyed the dark and uninviting surface of the water, dreading the thought of having to enter it again. Something scuttled over his bare feet and he almost screamed in sudden panic. He saw that it was a gecko lizard scuttling toward the dark wall at the forward end of the cavern. Lizards were usually creatures of the sunlight. He walked to the place where he had seen the lizard vanish and got down on his hands and knees. He was relieved to see a faint line of light. He got down on his belly and squirmed beneath the rock. There was soft earth beneath him. He shoved some of it aside and crawled out into broad daylight to look up into the grinning face of Tucker C. Browne. "Dr. Livingstone, I presume," said that worthy.
Gary dressed quickly. Tuck got Sue. The two of them listened to Gary's story. "So," concluded Gary, "the only clue left to the lost mine, at least in my opinion, is the canyon beyond the cavern."
There was a long and deathly silence from the two Brownes.
"I'm going back in," said Gary quietly.
"I'll side you," said Tuck.
"Me too," said Sue.
"No," said Tuck.
"You can't leave me here," said Sue stubbornly.
She was right. While Gary widened the entrance to the cavern, Tuck and Sue got the gear. Gary carried it into the cavern. The two Brownes came in, followed by Lobo. The dog trotted ahead along the narrow ledge. "Aladdin's Cave," said Sue. "Who's got the magic lantern?"
Lobo turned suddenly. He trotted back past the three of them and began to growl. Gary stared at him. Suddenly there was darkness beneath the wall as rock and dirt fell heavily. Gary ran forward and got down on his knees. The hole had been blocked. He pushed against the rocks and could not move them. A cold feeling of dread came over him.
"Rock fall?" said Tuck from behind Gary.
"Maybe," said Gary. He stood up and looked at his two companions.
"We can always swim under the wall," said Sue.
"You might as well face the truth," said Gary. "If that wasn't a rock fall, someone blocked that hole, and that same someone could be waiting for us to pop up out of the water."
"Like who?" asked Tuck.
"Whom!" corrected Sue.
Gary shrugged. "Someone might have been watching us all the time," he said.
"Well, if we can't get out, he can't get in," said Sue.
"Yeh," said Tuck. He shivered.
Another cold thought came to Gary. They were unable to return through the hole, but that did not mean whoever had blocked the hole could not clear it and follow them if he so desired.
Gary took his gear and waded into the water. He led the way out into the tunnel-like canyon. There was no way to scale those sheer walls. He walked on, keeping his face turned away from the others so that they might not see the fear etched upon it.
They splashed steadily onward, sometimes wading, sometimes clambering over loose detritus that had fallen from high above. The echoes of their slow passage made strange and eerie sounds as though someone, or something, was laughing at them.
Now and again they had to squeeze between the damp walls which had closed in together. If a flash flood should strike suddenly, as they often did, it would fill the narrow trough with roaring waters that would drown anything living caught in the canyon.
After an hour's slow progress they stopped to rest. Gary unwrapped the derrotero and the photograph to study them. He took out his compass and checked the direction in which they were traveling. It was almost due east. Yet the canyon they were in did not show on the derrotero or on the aerial photograph. The three of them discussed it quietly. "It's possible that the photograph might not have picked up this canyon. Sometimes at certain angles, things can be hidden," said Tuck.
Gary took out his magnifying glass and studied the photograph of the general area in which they now were. Suddenly he started. His lens had caught a very faint line, barely discernible, running along the mesa top in an easterly direction from the canyon of the water hole. He eyed it closely but he could not distinguish any features.
"This might be the canyon we are in," he said, tracing the line with his finger. "Maybe you're right, Tuck. The light or angle — or something — might not have caught the canyon quite right."
"But it's not marked on the derrotero," said Sue.
"Which means it either did not exist at the time the derrotero was made, or my great-grandfather left it out because it had no bearing on the treasure trail," said Gary. He tapped the sunburst marking with the question mark inside of the circle. "But from what I can figure, this has to be ahead of us. With luck, this canyon might just run into the canyon where the sunburst has been marked on the derrotero."
"And if it doesn't?" asked Sue.
Gary did not answer. He rolled photograph and derrotero together and replaced them in the plastic wrapping.
"Maybe this canyon doesn't lead anywhere," said Sue. "Maybe it is a dead end. What do we do then, partners?"
"Go back," said Gary shortly.
Her eyes were wide and her face was taut. "But what if…? Say he is…?"
Gary walked on, followed by Tuck. Both of them were just as concerned as Sue was, but the lure of the Lost Espectro took precedence over their concern and fright.
The morning was at mid-passage when they reached a place where the canyon widened. The right-hand side of the canyon was still that sheer wall, so steep and high it seemed to be leaning over the canyon, but the left-hand side was now lower and composed of shattered rock and great boulders stippled with long-dead trees and brush, a treacherous-looking and impassable mass. Here the canyon trended to the left and narrowed again, and on the left-hand side appeared a dark opening from which the stream emerged, much as it had back in the canyon of the water hole.
Tuck eyed the dark orifice and shivered a little. "We have to go in there now?" he said.
Gary grounded his rifle and looked farther up the narrowing canyon. "Not until we see what is up there. This is evidently the place where the stream broke through when it was blocked from the canyon of the arrastres. ¡Adelante!" He led the way to the east.
The sun was at its zenith when they reached a place where their narrow passageway joined yet another canyon, and despite the light of the sun, this was a gloomy place, for the walls leaned inward, forming a rough bottle shape, with the mouth of the great bottle high overhead. There was a strange brooding quality about this place that repelled Gary. Lobo growled low in his throat and pressed his muscular body hard against Gary's leg.
"I'd almost rather go into that water cave back there," said Tuck. "This place is downright creepy."
Once again Gary checked derrotero and aerial photograph against each other. This time he was quite sure that the sunburst with the question mark inscribed inside of it must be quite close, but there was no indication on the aerial photograph that such a canyon as the one that loomed before them existed at all. If the sunburst was in that canyon, it was an indication that his greatgrandfather had in all likelihood penetrated in there, but the question mark within the circle of the sunburst clearly indicated that either he had not believed that the symbol was true, or that he had not been able to find further clues to the lost mine. "I know one thing, kid," Jerry Black had said cryptically. "If you ever find that old derrotero your great-grandfather made, you just might get a lead on the Lost Espectro."