d. "Come on!

"Have you your revolver?"

"Yes!"

"Keep a grip of it then. I hardly think there'll be a body here now.
But it's as well to keep your wits about ye."

Jim went on first and Phil followed.

Phil's foot struck metal. He looked down.

Two rails ran along the bottom of the tunnel.

"Nothing obsolete about this bunch!" whispered Jim jocularly.

They followed along in caution till they came to a truck on the rails
capable of holding twenty sacks of flour or feed at a time.

On either side of them were walls of sacked flour and other grain.

"The Lord only knows how far this underground warehouse extends,"
remarked Jim, "and how many thousands of dollars worth of stuff is
cached away in it, ready to haul away as the chance comes along."

They passed on until they must have been under Brenchfield's
warehouse, when the tunnel dead-ended, branching off to the right and
to the left.

Jim stopped.

"That's about all," he said. "Brenchfield's warehouse is above us. The
Pioneer Traders' is at the end that way. The O.K. Supply Company's is
at the other end.

"See! There is a trap door in each, like this up here, that drops
inward and acts as a chute for sliding down the stuff right onto the
track. Simplest thing on earth, and it has been going on for years
with devil a body the wiser."

"Well!--of all the elaborate thieving schemes!" exclaimed Phil,
dumbfounded.

"Elaborate nothing! Why, man, thousands and thousands of dollars worth
of feed and flour have been stolen from these three places in the last
five years--as much as ten thousand dollars at a crack.

"I'm thinking they've got off with that much right this very night. It
is just a great big organised, dirty steal,--that's all. Little wonder
some folks get rich quick in this Valley, without any apparent outward
reason for their luck either in themselves or in what they seem to be
engaged in."

"How did you find all this out?" inquired Phil, his face white with
excitement.

"Oh,--easy enough in a way! I was in Brenchfield's warehouse, hiding.
I told you I had the key to it. By good or bad luck--I don't know
which--I was hiding on top of the darned trap door without being aware
of it. I heard a noise, and thought it was in the warehouse where I
was. Suddenly the flour sacks on every side of me began to slide. I
had just to slide with them; there was nothing else for it; and before
I could wink I was down here and in among the gang,--Rob Roy