The Mystery of the Death Trap Mine - M. V. Carey [11]
“Crummy, huh?” Allie said, pointing.
“He’ll probably fix it up sooner or later,” said Bob. “How long has he been here?”
“Almost a month,” Allie told him. “He moved in with a bedroll and some pots and pans, and I think that’s all he’s got now. He’s really roughing it. That big building behind his cabin used to be the mine works. That’s where they took the ore from the mine and separated out the silver.”
A chain rattled and the guard dog came around the corner of the cabin. He was not as enormous as the boys had thought at first, but he was a very large dog. Jupe guessed that he was part Labrador retriever and part German shepherd. When he saw Allie and the boys, he gave a low growl.
“You sure that chain he’s got on is attached to something real solid?” said Pete.
Allie laughed. “Don’t worry. I threw a stick at him before, when I rode past on Queenie.
He can’t get at us.”
“I like the way you make friends with dumb animals, Allie,” said Bob. “Suppose he’d gotten loose?”
“Then Queenie and I would have outrun him,” declared Allie. She took a flashlight from the glove compartment of the pickup. “Come on.”
They started across the clearing to the mine entrance. The dog went into a frenzy, flinging himself at them, trying with all his might to break his chain. Allie ignored him, and the Three Investigators followed her into the brooding gloom of the mine.
When they were a few feet past the entrance, Allie snapped on the light. Its beam darted along the floor of the tunnel, which slanted downward. Side passages went off at intervals.
The walls were braced with timbers as big as railroad ties, and huge crossbeams helped support the rocky ceiling.
Aside from the sound of the dog barking outside, the mine was perfectly quiet. Yet somehow there was a faint air of menace all around. Allie and the boys moved slowly along the tunnel, picking their way on the rocky, uneven floor. Jupe kept his eyes fixed on the beam of light as it probed the waiting darkness ahead.
About fifty yards into the mountain, the tunnel branched out and became two tunnels, one leading off to the right and one extending at a slight angle to the left. They hesitated.
Then Allie started toward the left. The boys followed and the feeble light from the mine entrance was gone. Except for the flashlight, they were in total darkness. Their footsteps echoed eerily in the tunnel.
“I wonder where the lady fell,” said Allie. “The one who was killed in here.” In spite of herself, she shivered.
“Wait up, Allie,” said Jupe. He had glimpsed something on the floor of the tunnel.
“Shine the light over here a second, would you?” he asked.
Allie flashed the beam of light on a little heap of loose rock and pebbles. They seemed to have fallen from the wall of the tunnel. As Jupe bent to pick up a small stone, Allie and the light abruptly moved away.
“Hey!” shouted Pete. “Come back with that flash!”
Allie kept going, the flashlight bobbing and glowing ever more faintly from a side corridor that she had dodged into.
“Allie!” called Bob.
Suddenly there was a light in the tunnel behind them — a very powerful light that caught the boys and held them in its glare. “Exactly what do you kids think you’re doing?”
demanded an angry voice — the voice of Wesley Thurgood.
“Uh-oh!” said Pete.
Then the Three Investigators heard Allie drop her flashlight. It clattered against some rocks and they heard glass breaking.
At the end of that dark side corridor, Allie let out a blood-curdling scream.
She screamed and screamed and screamed.
Chapter 6
Death Trap!
“ALLIE! WHAT IS IT?” shouted Jupe.
The screams went on, high and hysterical.
“Blast that brat!” Thurgood dashed past the boys and plunged into the side corridor.
The boys stumbled after him and his light.
Allie was there, standing stiffly at the edge of a pit that gaped in the floor of the mine.
She stared down into