"Not with my consent!" exclaimed Seth. "I'm not murdering babies! And if you fellows attempt anything of the kind, there'll be trouble!"
"Look here," the sheriff said, addressing Will. "You boys go off in a corner somewhere and talk this thing over. Here's a pretty decent kind of a fellow, a neighbor of mine, getting into trouble on your account. Now you go and talk the thing over, and see if you can't decide to tell the truth and help him out as well as yourself."
"Why can't you tell him the whole story?" asked Chester as the boys grouped themselves in a shadowy corner of the cave. "Why don't you tell him just why you came out tonight, and how we happened to come into the cavern. I don't believe they'll do us any harm if you tell the truth."
"Now, look here, kid," Will answered, "if we tell the cowboys that we came into the hills hunting for a demented man, they'll want to know who the demented man is, and why he came into the hills without any supplies. Can't you understand that?"
"If he does," replied Chester, "I'll tell him all about it."
"If you do," Will continued, "the cowboys will join in the search for your father, and when they catch him, they'll turn him over to the two detectives who are now in the hills searching for him."
Chester turned pale as death and shrank back against the wall of the cave. His voice was piteous as he asked:
"So you know all about that, too, do you?"
"Yes," answered Will, "and we don't want the officers to get hold of your father. If they do, it will spoil all our plans, because they'll take him back to the penitentiary, and that would make new trouble for our friend. We want to find him ourselves."
"But I don't understand—"