“I’m shot!  I’m shot!” yelled the professor.

Bang!

A bullet whistled close to the head of Tad Butler.  Stacy Brown, who was just coming into camp with an armful of dry wood for the campfire, dropped his burden and with a howl made for shelter.  Tad and Ned had sprung to one side so as to be out of range, while Walter Perkins had flattened himself on the ground.

“Lie still!” commanded Tad sternly as the professor started to get up from where he had sunk down.  “Are you much hurt?”

“I—–­I don’t know.”

“Drop that pistol, you!” commanded Tad, glowering at the prisoner.

The man laughed.

“I’ve got you children now,” he sneered.  “I’ll pick you off unless you do as I tell you.  Now you come over here.  Walk straight, one hand out.  Leave your guns behind.  Cut me loose or you’re a dead one,” commanded the prisoner.

“Oh, am I?”

Tad glanced around to make sure that all the boys were out of range.  Then with a quick leap he got entirely out of range of the revolver in the hands of the prisoner.  Tad had thought he was out of range before, but the man on the ground had twisted the weapon about until its muzzle was pointing in Butler’s direction.

But this time the lad got out of range without question.  But he was no better off than before.  Reaching for his revolver he made the discovery that he had thrown off his belt with revolver and cartridges before beginning to get supper.  The others were in no better shape.  Not a boy had his revolver on, and the professor’s weapon was in the hands of the prisoner.

“I know a trick.  I’ve played it once to-day and I can play it again,” declared Tad, searching for a stone, while the others got well out of the way, watching T. Butler.  In an emergency they always looked to him to get them out of their difficulties.

“Professor, you lie still.  Don’t move.  I’ll fix this fellow.  You had better get a good bit farther off,” advised the lad, observing a movement on the part of the mountaineer.

Suddenly the latter braced his head and digging his heels into the ground ran around, pivoting on his head.  Tad anticipated the movement by running a few seconds in advance.  For a few moments it was a race of wits.  The lad as yet had not found a stone suited to his immediate requirements.  He was using his eyes in this direction as well as watching the prisoner.  Once the latter tried a shot at the boy.  The bullet passed Butler rather too close for comfort, but the Pony Rider Boy appeared not to have heard the shot.

Not a word was being said by the lad’s companions.  The professor lay where he had fallen, the perspiration streaming from his face and body up the side of the canyon the big eyes of Chunky might have been seen peering through between the bushes at the exciting scene below.  All at once Tad stooped over.  When he straightened up with a bound that carried him several feet to one side, he held a good-sized stone in his right hand.