CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
BURIED ALIVE.
For nearly half an hour they kept the coat spread, holding it close around the edges of the aperture with their heads, hands, knees, and elbows.

Withal some of the bitter smoke found ingress, torturing their eyes, and half stifling them.
They bore it with philosophic fortitude and in profound silence, using their utmost efforts to refrain from sneezing or coughing.
They knew that the least noise heard by the Indians above--anything to indicate their presence in the shaft--would ensure their destruction.
The fumigation would be continued till the savages were certain of its having had a fatal effect.

If they could hold out long enough, even Indian astuteness might be baffled.
From what Wilder had heard, their persecutors were in doubt about their having descended into the shaft; and this uncertainty promised to be their salvation.

Unless sure that they were taking all this trouble to some purpose, the red men would not dally long over their work.
Besides, there was the rich booty to be drawn from the captured waggons, which would attract the Indians back to them, each having an interest in being present at the distribution.
Thus reasoned Walt Wilder as they listened to detect a change in the performance, making use of all their ears.
Of course they could see nothing, no more than if they had been immured in the darkest cell of an Inquisitorial dungeon.

Only by their ears might they make any guess at what was going on.