at cavern.

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

OUR WORK RENEWED.

Could they see us, or could they not?

It was a hard trial sitting there motionless, wondering whether those
eager, searching eyes could penetrate as far through the gloom as where
we sat. It seemed they could not, as, for full ten minutes, their
owners rested there peering over the massive rocks.

The least movement on our part, a whinny or a snort from the mules,
would have been sufficient to have betrayed our whereabouts, and
bloodshed would, perhaps, have followed; but all remained still, save
once, when I heard Tom's gun-lock give a faint click just as first one
and then another head was being withdrawn.

"There, Mas'r Harry," said Tom in a whisper. "What do you think of
that? They're on the look-out for us you see. And we got grumbling
about the little dam breaking, when what did it break to do? Why, to
smooth over the rough work we had done, so as those copper-coloured
gentlemen shouldn't see it and make a row. But, say Mas'r Harry, I
a'most wonder they didn't see the water look thick. P'r'aps they will
yet, so I wouldn't move."

Tom's advice was so good that we sat for quite a couple of hours, when I
told him of the plans I had made.

"Tom," I said, "it was an act of folly for us to be working there
without one of us watching. I tell you what we must do, we must rest
till it begins to grow dusk, and then begin working in the dark. Do you
see?"

"Well, I can see now, Mas'r Harry," said Tom grinning; "but I don't see
how I'm going to see then. How so be: just as you like. I'm ready when
you are."

The afternoon passed, the sun disappeared behind the mountains, and the
dark shadows began to fall, just as with a loud shriek bird after bird
winged its way out of the cavern for its nightly quest of food. We
stole to the barrier, looked long and cautiously down the valley, and
then set to work in the dim and fast-fading light to dam the stream--
this time taking the precaution to lay lumps of rock and stalactites in
the bed to support our embankment of sand and earth; when once more the
stream took another course, the bed was dry, and in silence we stepped
down to the site of our former labours.

I was not so sanguine now of the toil proving remunerative; but from the
little knowledge I possessed of the Indian's superstitious character I
felt pretty sure that they would not venture by night to a cavern whose
interior was clothed by them