Chot remained silent for several seconds, looking at the rough plan which Rick had sketched1 out. He turned it first to one side and then the other, even looking at it upside down.
“Why don’t you stand on your head?” asked Rick with a chuckling2 laugh. He was happy because Chot appeared to agree with his theory, or idea, which seemed wild enough at first.
“I’m trying to look at it in all sort of ways before we tackle it,” Chot said.
“Will you try it with me?” eagerly asked Rick.
“I sure will!” came the quick answer. “But aren’t you going to let your Uncle Tod in on it?”
Rick slowly shook his head.
“Not just yet,” he answered. “I want to go back to the second tunnel before I say anything, and look around, now that I have drawn3 out this plan. I just wanted to see what you thought of it.”
“All right,” agreed Chot. “Maybe it will be best to say nothing until we’re a little more sure. But it looks all right to me,” he added as again he glanced at the drawing before handing it back to Rick. “How did you come to think of it?” he asked.
“Well, I got thinking how queer it was that all those rocks should be piled up there to the left of the place where we came out of the other end of the tunnel,” answered Rick. “It didn’t seem right they should be there naturally, and when I looked at them yesterday I saw they had been blasted out.”
“Blasted out?” cried Chot in amazement4.
“Yes, some explosive has been used there,” declared Rick, positively5.
“Then somebody must have done it!” exclaimed his chum.
“Sure they did.”
“On purpose?”
“Why else?”
“You mean they blasted away a rocky wall and made Lost River lose itself again, Rick?”
“Something like that, yes. But I can’t tell any more about it until we go take a look. We’ll go there with this map—maybe I haven’t got it just right, ’cause I made it from memory. But we’ll go take another look, and I can fix any mistakes I made. Then, if it seems to be like what I think, we’ll tackle it ourselves.”
“On our own, you mean?” asked Chot.
“Sure! Why not? If we tell Uncle Tod he may only laugh and say we can’t do it.”
“And if we tell Sam he’ll only look over his shoulder and say a ghost will get us,” chuckled6 Chot. “Yes, I guess we’d better go on our own. But we’ll take Ruddy, of course?” he questioned.
“Oh, sure!” exclaimed Rick.
The two boys bent7 over the drawing Rick had made. It appeared as shown on next page.
“Can you understand it?” asked Rick.
“Sure—most of it,” answered Chot. “Here’s our camp, and the flume where they used to wash out the pay dirt when they had water.”
“Lost River came from the tunnel, as I have drawn it,” went on Rick, “and the dotted lines show where it used to run in the tunnel. I’ve left off the top of the tunnel so you could see what I mean.”
“I see,” said Chot.
“Then,” continued Rick, pointing with his pencil, “we come to the opening of the second tunnel—I don’t exactly mean a second tunnel—”
“You mean the second opening of the tunnel, ’cause there’s only one tunnel,” suggested Chot.
“That’s it—yes,” assented8 Rick. “And at this second opening is where there was a division—the water seemed to flow down into Green Valley.”
“I see,” said Chot.
“And here,” went on Rick, “where I’ve marked it, is a pile of rocks. Now I claim these rocks were blasted out of the side of the hill and piled there, either by the blast or afterward9. And, what’s m............