CHAPTER XIII.

PRISONERS IN THE HUT.

It was almost pitch dark within the hut.  Only from a crack under the door could any light enter.  For an instant after the taunting of the voices of the men who had locked them in reached their ears, the trio of youthful prisoners remained silent.

Peggy it was who spoke first.

“Well, what’s to be done now?” she demanded.

“We’ve got to get out of here,” responded Jimsy, with embarrassing candor.

“That’s plain enough,” struck in Roy; “but how do you propose to do it?”

“I don’t know; let’s look about.  Maybe there’s a chimney or something.”

“There’s no opening larger than that one where the stove pipe goes through.  I’ve noticed that already,” responded Roy.

“Phew!  This is a fix for fair.”

“I should say so; but kicking about it won’t help us at all.  Let’s make a thorough investigation.”

In the darkness they groped about, but could discover nothing that appeared to hold out a promise of escape.  The two boys shook the door violently; but it was firm on its hinges.

Next Roy proposed to cut a way through it with his pocket knife.

“We’d be starved to death by the time you cut through that stuff,” declared Jimsy.

In proof of this he kicked the door, and the resulting sound showed that it was built of solid wood without any thin panels which might be cut through.

“What next?”

Peggy asked the question as the two perspiring lads stood perplexed without speaking or moving.

“Jiggered if I know,” spoke Jimsy; “can’t you or Roy think of anything?”

“We might try to batter the door down with that table,” suggested Roy.

“It’s worth trying.  We’ve got to get out of here somehow.”

The two boys picked up the heavy, roughly made table and commenced a violent assault on the door.  But although they dented it heavily, and sent some splinters flying, the portal held its own.  At length they desisted from pure weariness.  The situation looked hopeless.

“It looks pretty bad,” spoke Jimsy.

“It does indeed,” agreed Roy.  “Peggy, I wish we hadn’t brought you along.”

“And why, pray, Roy Prescott?”

“Oh, because—­because, well, this isn’t the sort of thing for a girl.”

“Well, I guess if my brother can stand it I can,” rejoined the girl, pluckily and in a firm voice.

“Well, there’s no use minimizing the fix we’re in,” declared Roy.  “This is a lonesome bit of country.  It may be a week before anyone will come around.  We’ve just got to get out, that’s all there is to it.”

“I wish you’d solve the problem then,” sighed Jimsy; “it’s too much for me.”

“I’ll make another search of the premises, maybe we can stumble across something that may aid us.  At any rate, it will give us something to do and keep our minds off the predicament we are in.”