“Lie down,” a man’s voice commanded. “You’ll be all right in a little while. You had quite a fall.”
“What’s the matter? Where am I? Who are you?” asked Fenn.
“That’s all right now, sonny,” was the reply in such soothing tones, as one sometimes uses toward a fretful child. “You’re in safe hands.”
“Has the kid woke up?” called a voice from the blackness beyond the circle of light cast by the torches.
“Yes,” answered the man who had made Fenn lie down.
Following the words there was a sudden increase in the illumination of the cavern, and Fenn saw a big man approaching, carrying a torch. With him were several others. One of them had a rope.
“Are you—are you going to make me a prisoner?” asked Fenn, his heart sinking.
“That’s what we are.”
Just then another man flashed a torch in the boy’s face. No sooner had he done so than he called out:
“Great Scott! If it isn’t the very kid I chased!”