“I don’t think he did!” “Will replied.

“Oje saw him out here not long ago!” Sandy insisted.

“What was he doing?”

“I presume he was watching the fire.”

“The two men who pursued him are back, too!” Will continued.  “Tommy and I found them in a cute little nest in the rocks not more than an hour ago.  Just before we built these fires, in fact.”

“I suppose you built the fires to lure us from the cabin!” laughed Sandy.  “Well, we wasn’t at the cabin, but we saw the signals just the same!”

“We wanted you to come and help capture the men who have the Little Brass God,” Will answered.

“So you’ve got the Little Brass God penned up under the hill!” laughed Sandy.  “You’ve got it, and yet you haven’t got it!”

“I never said we had it!” Will replied.  “I said we had it penned up under the hill.  You didn’t give me time to explain that there were two men penned up with it.”

“All right!” Sandy said.  “You’ve come to the right shop for fighting men.  I can see those two fellows fading away at my approach!”

“Then you go in ahead,” advised Tommy.  “They seem to be well armed and may shoot, if you don’t scare them into fits with one of your fierce glances!  They’re bold, bad men!”

“How do you know they haven’t disappeared while you’ve been making signals?” asked Sandy.  “They’ve had time enough to be five miles away!”

“We nailed ’em in with a couple of boulders!” grinned Tommy.

“You followed Pierre’s example, did you?”

“Yes, we just blocked ’em in.”

“Well, I think we’d better be getting them out, then!” Sandy urged.  “And also be moving toward the cabin.  George’ll think we’ve got killed or something.”

“Come on, then,” Will exclaimed.  “I’ll show you where they are!”

The boy led the way down the slope for some distance and then paused at a boulder which blocked the entrance to what seemed to be a cavern of good size.  They listened for a moment, but could hear no sounds coming from the interior.

“How’re you going to get them out?” asked Thede.

“We ain’t going to get ’em out!” replied Will.  “What do you think we brought you boys here for?  We know they can’t get out, so we’re just going to sit down here and wait for them to get good and hungry.”

“All right!” Sandy answered.  “Two can watch and two can go back to the cabin!  George will be good and anxious by this time.”

“I was thinking of asking Oje to watch a short time,” Will said.  “It’s a good thing the Indian came along with you.”

Oje was called down to the barricaded entrance and the situation briefly explained to him.  The Indian stepped close to the boulder and listened for a long time for sounds from the inside.

Then he turned to, the boys and shook his head gravely.

“Don’t you ever tell me they’ve gone and got away!” exclaimed Tommy.  “Why, they couldn’t get away unless they walked through forty feet of solid rock!  And they couldn’t do that!”