"That was a switch," said Gary dryly.
"Funnee, oh funnee! Well, I got my voice back, and when I screamed he vanished. Poof! just like that!"
Gary eyed the far side of the canyon. It was almost impossible to distinguish things because of the gloom. "You sure you didn't see who it was?" There was no answer from the girl. "Sue?" he added. He turned.
"It was his eyes," she said shakily. "Gary, I'll swear it must have been Asesino!"
His blood ran cold. Despite himself he shivered a little. "Cut it out!" he said.
"No," she insisted. "He wasn't wearing a hat, Gary, just a band of cloth about his thick dark hair like you see in the pictures of the old-time Apaches."
"He's just a legend now," he said firmly.
"No one knows for sure if he is dead," Sue said quietly.
Lobo came quietly up the slope. Gary eyed the big dog. It was strange that he had not made some commotion. "Lobo didn't seem to see or hear anything," he said.
"Can a dog see or hear a ghost" she said in a low voice.
"That's loco!" he said. "Let's get back to Tuck."
She walked up the slope ahead of him. Gary looked down at Lobo. "Didn't you see anything?" he asked.
Lobo looked back at his master. There was no trace of excitement about the dog. Gary shook his head and walked up the slope. Now and then he looked back down toward the floor of the dark canyon. There was nothing to be seen, yet he, too, felt as though he were being watched.
"Tuck!" called Gary.
There was no answer from the lean one, and no sound of metal striking earth.
"Tuck!" called Gary again.
There was no sound from Tuck. Sue looked quickly at Gary. A veil seemed to pass over the canyon as a cloud drifted high overhead; the canyon now had a twilight gloom about it.
"Tuck?" called Sue.
Gary looked down the slope again. It was as deserted as a lunar landscape. He walked around the rock slab; there was no sign of Tuck. A cold feeling came over Gary. Supposing, somehow, Asesino had gotten up behind Gary and Sue, and had spirited away Tuck? It was really impossible for a being of flesh and blood to do it, but then Lobo had not seen or heard anything. His heart skipped a beat. "Tuck?" he called.
Nothing; not a sight or a sound of the lean one. The hole was empty. The slope showed no signs of Tuck. Gary peered about; he was downright frightened now. He almost wished he had listened to the others and had left while they had had a chance to leave. "Lobo," said Gary. The dog sniffed up and stopped beside him. "Go find Tuck, Lobo."
Lobo padded off through the brush. He stopped at a clump of thick and tangled brush that was matted against the rock wall. He looked back at Gary.
"Go on, Lobo!" said Gary. "Find Tuck!"
Lobo stood stock-still. He whined a little.
Gary walked to the dog and stared at the brush. He looked down at Lobo. "Find Tuck," he repeated angrily.
Lobo whined and poked his nose into the brush. Gary pulled some of it aside, and a cool draft played about him. Suddenly his hair seemed to stand on end, for a ghostly, faint voice was calling his name. "Gary! Oh, Gary! Gary!"
Gary shivered. The voice seemed to come from the brush itself. He pulled more of it to one side and the cold draft grew more pronounced. Then he plainly heard the voice beyond him and much lower than he was. "Gary! Oh, Gary!"
He started forward. Lobo barked sharply. Gary's left foot began to sink and he jumped back, slipping and falling heavily. Gravel rushed from where he had been standing and pattered hollowly down below somewhere.
"Thanks, amigo!" came the strangled, hollow-sounding voice. "Whyn't you dump down that rock slab while you're at it?"
Gary got down on his hands and knees and worked his way back into the brush. His right hand struck a rounded edge of earth and then probed into nothingness. He bellied forward and found an irregular hole close beside the rock face. The cold air played about him as it rose from the black depths. "Tuck?" he called. His voice echoed below.
"Yeh, it's me," answered Tuck "Black as ink down here. I got tired of digging. Saw a rabbit run into that brush. Thought it might taste good if we needed more food. All of a sudden I found myself falling and I landed down here."
Gary closed his eyes. Green sickness welled up within him and his throat tasted sour. Many a man had been lost forever by fooling around just such old mine shafts and caves.
Sue came up behind Gary. "Where is he?" she asked.
"Don't come any closer," warned Gary. "He's all right."
"I got lonesome out there," she said.
Gary got the packs, tools, rifle, and shotgun and brought them to the place where Tuck had dropped from the face of the earth. There were two coils of light nylon rope in the packs. He took one of them and fastened a bull's-eye lantern to it. "Line and lamp coming down, Tuck," he said. He lowered away.
He could see the lantern light alternately illuminating each side of the deep hole as it swung about. Then he saw Tuck's dirty, frightened face in the yellow pool of light, only to lose it again. He lowered the light a little more and it swung about to light something else, something white and bony — a human skeleton complete with grinning, hollow-eyed skull. Then it, too, was lost from sight as the lantern spun about once more. Tuck's shriek blasted against Gary's ears. Gary had the presence of mind to whip the end of the nylon rope quickly around a shattered tree stump that was near the edge of the brush. The rope tightened, and feet scrabbled against the sides of the shaft. Tuck's harsh and erratic breathing echoed hollowly. In record time his head popped up out of the opening. Gary grabbed him and dragged him out on the ground. Tuck lay there shivering with fright, taking in air with great gulps.
Gary gathered his courage and looked down in the hole once more. The lamp twisted and again lighted the human relics. Shreds of rotted clothing hung on the pitiful framework, and one bony hand rested on what seemed to be a book. It was then that Gary noticed the thick tree trunk to one side of the hole; it had deep notches cut into it. His heart leaped. It was a sure-enough Spanish miner's chicken ladder!
Tuck gasped. "It wasn't that skeleton that bothered me, amigo, it was the bad air down there."
"Sure, sure," said Gary soothingly. He looked back at Tuck. "I think you literally stumbled into the Lost Espectro, Tuck."
"You sure?"
"No, but I soon will be."
"You going down there?"
Gary nodded. "It isn't the skeleton I'm afraid of, Tuck, it's what Sue saw down in the canyon." He told Tuck of Sue's experience.
"Who do you think it was?" asked Tuck after a long pause.
"Quien sabe? The dog didn't see or hear anything."
"You think she might be kidding us?"
"I am not!" said Sue angrily from the background.
Gary looked up at the dark sky. "It's getting late," he said. "We can't possibly get out of here tonight. I say we stay here. Hole up in one of those caves. Two of us stay on guard all night. Lobo won't let anyone get near us without a warning."
"Sure," said Sue sarcastically "He sure gave us a warning about that somebody down there, whoever it was."
"Maybe he knew who it was," said Tuck thoughtfully. "Someone he wouldn't be concerned about. How would he know about our suspicions about certain people?"
"You might have something there," said Gary.
"Whoever it was, sure looked like an Apache," said Sue. "How many Apaches does Lobo know?"