While they talked the chances over, another breeze of trouble blew in from the entrance tunnel.  An argument of some kind was in progress between the men stationed there.

Sandy moved forward to the mouth of the dark hole and listened.  The argument was being carried on in the language of the country, but now and then a few words in English were heard.

“I tell you they got away, slick and clean!” the Englishman said, as Sandy listened.

A mumbling of native talk, and then another sentence: 

“And some one will be here directly.”

Jack, who had heard the words, turned to Frank with a grin.

“Is that a promise or a threat?” he asked.

“I think our friends are coming,” Frank replied.

“They can never find us in this hole,” Jack complained.  “Suppose we make a little noise?”

“If they are headed this way, they know where we are,” Frank said, “and it seems as if we ought to wait for them.”.

“I’ll starve!” muttered Jack.  “I could eat a fried telegraph pole, and like it!”

“I eat since yesterday only plue sky!” Hans contributed.  “My pelly makes argument mit my konscience!  But?”

Sandy sat dejectedly by the wall and said nothing.  He knew that he was still suspected of leading the boys into the trap in which they now found themselves, and was studying over plans to assist them out and at the same time establish his innocence.

It seemed to the lads that a whole day passed without a single thing to break the monotony, but Frank’s watch insisted that it was only eleven o’clock.  It was dark most of the time in the chamber, for the boys were saving of their flashlight batteries.

Finally one of the plans which had been slowly maturing in Sandy’s brain brought the lad into action.  Noiselessly he crept away from the little group and moved on his hands and knees, along the tunnel leading to the cellar of the old mud house.

He reasoned that that point would not be so closely guarded as the exit would be; also that Ned and his companions, if they returned to the city in quest of the boys and sought the mud house, would be more apt to be watching the house itself than the exit, which was some distance away from the road.

After proceeding a few feet, Sandy stopped and listened.  There were no indications of human presence in the tunnel ahead, or in the cellar, which was not far away now, and from which a faint light shone.

When the boy reached the entrance to the cellar he saw three Chinamen lying on the earth floor, either asleep or under the influence of opium.  It did not take the lad long to make up his mind as to which one of the causes, sleep or opium, had put his guards off their guard.

There was a strong odor of opium in the cellar, and a closer examination of the place showed him that the watchmen had been “hitting the pipe,” as the boys on South Clark street, Chicago, would have expressed it.  However, the way did not seem to be clear, for there were soft footsteps on the patch of board floor which covered a part of the cellar, and then a Chinaman backed down the ladder.