Not a ray of light came in on any side, and groping round and round he could detect neither crevice nor void.

There were weeds and grass, still warm and smouldering, the _debris_ of what had been set on fire for their fumigation.

The rock rested on a bedding of these; hence the exact fit, closing every crack and crevice.
On completing his exploration Hamersley returned to his companion below.
"Hopeless!" murmured Wilder, despondingly.
"No, Walt; I don't think so yet." The Kentuckian, though young, was a man of remarkable intelligence as well as courage.

It needed these qualities to be a prairie merchant-- one who commanded a caravan.

Wilder knew him to be possessed of them-- in the last of them equalling himself, in the first far exceeding him.
"You think thar's a chance for us to get out o' hyar ?" he said, interrogatively.
"I think there is, and a likely one." "Good! What leads ye to think so, Frank ?" "Reach me my bowie.