Bolts (7 page)

“Say, we're in a pickle,” Bolts gasped. “What are we going to do?”

“Figure it out for yourself,” replied the mountain lion. “I know what
I
am going to do. It's evident that you're a very unsafe fellow to travel with, so I'm leaving. Goodby, and good luck!”

With that, the mountain lion bounded to the edge of the ravine, gave a tremendous leap that carried him over the yawning space, and vanished among the rocks on the other side. Only a bird could have followed him.

Bolts was so astounded by the leap and so upset at being abandoned in such a spot that he could hardly pull his wits together. Then a shout went up, and he was aware of the dog pack racing toward him with eager yelps.

“Oh, woe is me!” he muttered forlornly as he went scrambling around the slope. “I should have done my own thinking instead of depending on a cat critter. Now I got enemies in front, enemies behind, and there's nowhere to go but up—and I ain't got wings. If I can't find a real hole to crawl into, I'm a gone dawg for sure.”

There just
had
to be a hole somewhere. If he didn't find a hole in a hurry, he'd have to use his Number Three growl again, and somehow it didn't seem that Number Three would help him much here. There were too many enemies, and it would probably wreck his battery to frighten them all.

Was that a hole between those rocks? Glory be, it was!

Bolts darted into it. At the moment it seemed like the most heavenly hole in the world, for it was narrow and winding and deep. The men couldn't possibly reach him here, even with poles, and only one dog at a time could follow. What could be more perfect?

When Bolts figured he was in deep enough, he turned around so he could face the first of his attackers. Turning wasn't at all easy, for his hole was so narrow he had to twist and squirm and nearly tie himself into a knot to manage it.

Safe at last, and ready for business, he remembered that he had better call Bingo. So much had happened that it seemed like hours since he'd last talked to Bingo, but when he checked his built-in clock—which he'd almost forgotten—he was surprised to discover that only a few minutes had passed.

“By Joe,” he muttered, “time sure is a funny thing. Seems like the more trouble you have, the slower it passes. Kinda hate to tell Bingo I'm bottled in a spot like this, but maybe he can figger what to do. Be mighty nice to hear his voice again.”

Quivering with expectation, Bolts tried to raise his tail and turn on his radio.

It was impossible.

He twisted, squirmed, wiggled, and turned, but there simply wasn't room in the narrow hole to get his tail in the right position. This was a most unsettling discovery, and poor Bolts felt so thwarted he would have welcomed a tangle with the dog pack just to ease his mind.

But even this was denied him. He could hear muffled voices coming from the entrance to the hole. “Keep those dogs away. Don't you know that monster can tear them to bits in there? Bring picks and shovels. And if we can't dig him out, we'll blast him out. He's got to be destroyed.”

6

He Goes Spelunking

High up in the Space Jumper, Big Butch was hovering over the radio with growing concern. “Butch calling Bolts!” he repeated. “Butch calling Bolts! We've come to rescue you! Please answer!”

Finally he shook his head. “Something's sure gone wrong,” he said dolefully.

“He seemed very hard pressed the last time he spoke,” said the commander. “I'm awfully afraid he's been captured—or worse …”

“Poor little puppy dog,” muttered Butch.

Bingo sat biting his knuckles. Suddenly he looked at the parrot. “What's happened, Pirate?” he begged. “Bolts isn't d-dead, is he?”

“Ha!” the jealous parrot cackled happily. “He might as well be dead. He's deep in the ground where he belongs, and good riddance!”

“Pirate!” snapped the commander. “That's no way to talk about a new member of the family. Bolts may be ignorant and uncouth, but he's just as much a member of the Brown family as you are, and that practically makes him your brother.”

“Sorry relation,” grumbled the parrot. “But if you want him, you can have him—if you can get him. He's crawled into a hole.”

“That's it!” Bingo cried. “He's crawled into a narrow hole where he can't use his radio. What direction is it from here, Pirate?”

“Sou'east by south,” Pirate admitted reluctantly.

“How far?”

“Three hundred and nine and a quarter miles—and that's all I'm telling you. You've strained my second sight to the breaking point!”

Bingo's fingers flew over the control buttons. The earth seemed to shift, and below them a new range of mountains appeared. Now Bingo pressed the down button, and the Space Jumper, like a falling elevator, began to descend through the atmosphere. Everyone except Big Butch felt an oopity feeling in his stomach, which is the opposite of the umpity feeling of going up.

A half mile above the mountains, Bingo halted the Space Jumper and everyone peered down through the viewing ports. There were wild and barren ridges below them, some topped with snow, but at this height neither Bingo nor the commander could make out details. Big Butch, however, had built-in super vision, and could spot a beetle at a thousand yards.

“See anything?” Bingo asked.

“Not a soul,” Big Butch answered. “If that poor little dog was being chased, there'd be men around. Your navigation must be off.”

“Jiminy!” Bingo exclaimed. “I'll bet Pirate gave me the distance in nautical miles. I was using land miles.”

“Lubber!” squawked Pirate. “You'll never be a sailor.”

“Aw, we were traveling over land,” Bingo said. “So naturally I thought …” His fingers flew over the button panel again, and now an auxiliary jet motor began to drive them forward. It seemed terribly slow after their zip speed in space, but finally new peaks were beneath them, with a desert in the distance.

“There they are!” Big Butch cried. “In that little valley. Men, horses, dogs—lots of them! There's a hole in the rocks, and they're digging in it!”

“Keep your eye on them,” the commander ordered. “Quick, Bingo, call Bolts again.”

Poor Bolts, half a mile and some spare feet below, was still unable to use his radio. After overhearing Major Mangler's unpleasant plans for him, his main concern was to get as far down in the hole as possible.

He had managed to turn around once more, and squeeze past rocks he couldn't dig out with his paws. Once he wondered how he could escape from the hole—if that happy chance ever came—then he told himself, “Aw, what's the diff? I'll worry about that later.”

His sniffer had already warned him that he was not alone down here. There was some sort of critter ahead—a very cautious and quiet critter that kept retreating as he advanced. He decided he had better get acquainted with it before trouble cut loose on them both.

“Hey, you!” he called. “I don't know who you are, but we're in a pickle. How deep does this hole go?”

The critter refused to answer.

Bolts pushed on, then stopped abruptly at a fork in the passage. On his right was only blackness and strange smells his sniffer didn't care for. But in the dimness on his left he made out a pair of shrewd, beady eyes in a sharp-pointed face. The eyes were studying him intently.

“By Joe,” Bolts muttered, “ain't you a fox critter?”

“I admit to nothing,” replied the fox critter. “Especially to a metal doglike thing that ticks and talks. Explain yourself.”

“Ain't got time to explain,” Bolts told him. “Can't you hear the racket outside?”

“I'm unpleasantly aware of it—and it doesn't inspire me with confidence in you. What's going on?”

“That's Major Mangler and his men, and they're hard after me,” Bolts said hurriedly. “When they find they can't dig me out, they're aiming to blow me out. We gotta scram—if there's a deeper place to scram to. What's over on your side?”

“Bats and darkness. And all of it unhealthy.”

Bolts shivered. “How 'bout this other direction?”

“The same, only more of it.”

“That don't sound so good.”

“It isn't at all good, except that it's deeper. Being the greater of two evils, I'd hardly recommend it—but since the situation is desperate, I'd suggest you take it.”

“After you,” Bolts said nervously. “And we'd better hurry—time's running out on us.”

“Can you see in the dark?” inquired the fox critter.

“I—I'm supposed to have special night sight,” Bolts admitted.

“Then what are you waiting for?”

“B-but I'm kinda inexperienced in places like this,” poor Bolts protested. “Why don't you go first, and let me follow?”

“Oh, but that would be most unwise. Beyond this point there is utter and complete darkness. In such a place, good vision should always lead, and good advice should always follow. It makes for safety as well as speed.”

Bolts would have preferred to have his good advice ahead of him, but at that moment Major Mangler—who had decided that picks and shovels were useless—set off his first blast. The explosion rocked the hole and sent Bolts tumbling into the blackness.

Bolts slid over a hundred feet downward, mainly on his sniffer, before he fetched up with a mighty jolt against a rock. If his sniffer hadn't been made of the very best stainless steel—as was most of him, in fact—his sniffing days would have been over. Even so, he was so badly shaken that he skipped several ticks before his jangled circuits cleared.

“Keep going!” the fox critter urged. “It's caved in behind us! Do you want the next blast to bury us?”

Bolts went slipping and sliding on downward. Several hundred feet later he reached a level spot and stood blinking his eye lights unhappily. Going back was forever impossible—but going forward seemed quite unthinkable.

His night vision showed a monstrous cavern opening ahead. The place curved away in all directions into the darkest dark imaginable. It took no imagination whatever to fill the impenetrable black distance with the most horrible of dangers.

Bolts rotated his sniffer, then wished he hadn't. “What's that I smell?” he asked fearfully.

“I'd advise you not to question it,” replied the fox critter, staying carefully behind him.

“B-but it smells dangerous! I gotta know what it is.”

“You asked for it, brother. Didn't you ever face the Terrible Unknown before? It has the most dangerous of all smells.”

“Ulp! I'll confess I ain't been around much. W-what's it like?”

“One never knows. That's the awful part about it. Anything unknown is always terrible until you tangle with it. I'd advise you to proceed, for delay always makes it worse.”

“We can't go back, so I reckon it's gotta be done,” Bolts mumbled. “But I ain't tangling with nothing till I scare it down to size.”

Without the least suspicion of what its effect might be, he opened his mouth and loosened his Number Two growl.