rees were slipping and moving toward the
valley.

On and on Frank raced, straining every nerve. Not one of his companions
was burdened like him, yet not one of them made greater speed in the
effort to escape. His exertions were almost superhuman. It seemed that
the knowledge of Inza's awful peril actually lifted him over every
obstacle.

Finally some one clutched and stopped him. He found it was Red Ben, who
said:

"All right now. Mountain him no run down hill here."

It was true Frank had escaped from the track of the landslide and had
brought his sweetheart to safety. Behind them the avalanche of earth,
and stones, and timber was heaping itself on the tiny plateau and
pouring over the brink of the cliff in a cascade that thundered into the
valley below. All around the rocky slopes and wooded steeps were roaring
back the sounds like monsters awakened from peaceful slumber and enraged
at being thus disturbed.

All this had been brought about by the shot fired by Red Ben. That small
concussion had started rolling a single pebble that was the keystone.
Recent rains had loosened that pebble. Others followed it, and a bit of
earth began to slip downward. This dislodged larger stones, and soon the
landslide was under way.

It ceased almost as quickly as it began. The grumbling, roaring
mountains continued raging for a few moments, and then they, too, became
silent. The bright moonlight revealed the change wrought by the
landslide, and it told those who had escaped that the mouth of the cave
that had been the hiding place of Del Norte and his companions was
closed forever by tons of earth, burying the wretches in a living tomb.

Slowly Frank's friends gathered around him. They were all there; all had
escaped. Of the entire party Belmont Bland was the only one missing. One
remembered having seen Bland running blindly toward the brink of the
precipice, apparently having forgotten its existence. No human eye ever
beheld him afterward. If he did not rush blindly over the precipice, it
is likely he halted on the brink and turned to escape in another
direction when it was too late, being swept over by the rushing
landslide.

At the foot of that precipice the body of Pat O'Toole was also buried
where Frank had left it when he lost no time in climbing the mountain
side.

CHAPTER XI.

BURIED ALIVE!

As Frank and his party left the mountain side there remained two men
buried alive in the cave whose mouth was clo