"Oh, shut up," snarled Frank, the lines of his face drawing sharply under the excruciating pain he was enduring. "How--how long is this going to keep up?" he demanded. "Yes, when can the captain get out again?" chimed in Homely Harry. "White man walk byemby," returned the man of herbs. "Before sun up he go out. Then mebbe Indian kill um." "That's alright, Reddy; we'll be there for the killing. But we don't 'low we've got any hard feelings again you. Hey, boys?" "Sure not," chorused the others. Crossing the medicine man's palm with a gold piece, to his intense surprise and satisfaction, they again led him into the vaulted chamber and releasing Dew Drop bade her bind the cloth about his eyes once more. Tony seeing that his orders were being obeyed, had stepped back to speak to Frank as to the best means of disposing of their prisoners. As he turned he observed that the Indian girl was feeding embers to the fire the better to light their way out. But the desperado had no more than turned his back on the savage and the girl ere the rocks beneath him were shaken by a mighty tremor. A sudden and awful roar smote his ears. A fearful blow seemed to have been struck across his eyes. The air was full of hurling rocks and debris. Tony and his companions were tumbled together in a confused heap, yelling in terror at the awful thing that had happened, though they knew not what it meant. Rocks and particles rained down upon their bodies with sickening force. But the desperate men neither heard nor felt now. A sudden darkness had settled over them and they lay motionless and lifeless. A mighty explosion had rent the cave from end to end. CHAPTER X. IN A LIVING TOMB. It might have been hours for aught they knew that they had lain there. Frank was the first to regain consciousness. He heard someone groan and called out demanding whose voice it was. "It's Tony, or what little is left of him," was the answer. "Are you hurt?" "Donno. Feel as if the roof had caved in on me. Where's the rest of the gang?" "If they only have got out of it as easily as we have we can count ourselves the luckiest men on earth," returned the elder James boy with emphasis. Forgetting his recent wound, which the herbs of the medicine man had most miraculously put to sleep so that he felt no pain at all, Frank struggled to his feet and struck a match. Texas and Harry he espied lying in a heap in one corner half hidden by the debris which had fallen upon them. Out of the wreck he gathered some sticks and rekindled the fire which in a moment brightly illuminated the chamber. The scene that met his gaze was one of wreck and ruin. But to this the bandit gave no heed. His first care was for the other members of the band. "They're alive, Tony," he cried, "every man of them. Come help me get them out--" "You'll have to get Tony out first, I'm thinkin'. I'm wedged in here under this heap of stuff tighter'n a sardine in a box."