The steps had come to an end. An ascending elevation began just in
front of them. This they made out by the light of a match, which
flickered uncertainly in the bad air. Bats dashed against the walls
and every movement was followed by a cloud of dust.
"Do you feel anything?" suddenly exclaimed Alan. "Seems to me like
a current of air on my feet."
Ned lit another match.
Before them they again made out an ascending slant such as they had
come down. But the base of it was hollowed out in the form of a
small cave. As the light went out both boys stooped to look further
into this opening.
"Light!" they exclaimed almost together.
They were looking through a tunnel made, as they afterward found, in
the base of the filled-in portion of the chasm. Reptiles, bats and
dust were forgotten now. Plunging forward on their hands and knees,
the two boys advanced without difficulty to the distant mouth of the
tunnel.
It ended abruptly in the face of the mesa cliff, one hundred feet
above the valley below. There was not the slightest ledge below it
and the side of the mesa dropped so precipitately that access to the
tunnel mouth from without seemed impossible.
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