Dan Baxter and his friends were hungry, and lost no time in preparing a meal.  Tom and Sam were led to one side of an inner chamber, and the rope fastened to their hands was bound tightly to the protruding roots of a tree.

“Now, don’t you attempt to escape,” said Baxter.  “If you do—­well, you’ll wish you hadn’t, that’s all.”

And then he rejoined his companions in the outer chamber, leaving poor Tom and Sam to their misery.

CHAPTER XXII.

Jasper Grinder tries to make terms.

“Well, Tom, this looks as if we had put our foot into it,” was Sam’s comment, delivered in a whisper.

“Don’t despair, Sam,” said his brother cheerfully.  “We have been in worse holes, remember, and always managed to escape with a whole skin.”

“That’s true, but I don’t see how we are going to get away now.  I suppose somebody will stand on guard all the time.”

“Perhaps Dick and Mr. Barrow will come to the rescue.”

“If they can find the way.  The wind and snow will cover the trail pretty well.”

“There’s no use of crying over the affair.  If we can break away, I’ll be for doing so.”

“So will I.”

“Hi, you stop your talking in there!” shouted Dan Baxter.  “Plotting to run away, I reckon.  It won’t do you any good.  If you try it, somebody will get a dose of buckshot in the leg.”

“You don’t mean to say you’re going to stop our talking,” said Tom, in indignation.

“That’s just what I do mean to say.  Now stop—­or go hungry.”

As the Rovers did not wish to starve, they relapsed into silence.  A meal was being prepared by the Baxter party, and the appetizing odors floated into the inner chamber, where Tom and Sam sniffed them eagerly, for the walk and the bracing air had given them an appetite.

“Smells good, don’t it?” remarked Dan Baxter, as he came in, fire-brand in hand, and confronted Tom.

“What, the cave?” asked Tom carelessly.

“No, the grub.”

“Oh, you are cooking something, aren’t you?”

“You know well enough that we are.”

“Well, I can’t stop you, Baxter, so cook away.”

“Don’t you want something to eat?”

“To be sure we do,” put in Sam.  “Nobody wants to go hungry.”

“Perhaps you’ll have to go hungry,” said Dan Baxter significantly.

“It would be just like you to starve us, Baxter!” burst out Tom.  “I know you are as mean as they make them.”

“No compliments, please.  I know my business, Tom Rover; and let me say I am in this game to win.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with our eating.”

“You will see presently.  I know all about what brought you here.”

“And we know what brought you here,” put in Sam.

“I suppose you fellows have a map, or something like it,” went on Baxter, after a pause, during which he gazed curiously first at Tom and then at the youngest Rover.