“Oh, yes, and I thought I’d be here for sometime,” smiled Mr. Scott. “You boys arrived just in time. How did you like my bell concert?”
“If it hadn’t been for that we might never have found you,” said Ned. He broke the padlock with the butt of his gun, and then stepped hastily back. “What is that?”
A dark figure was worming through the hole in the wall of the dungeon. “Don’t be afraid,” the professor said cheerfully. “It is Yappi, who is joining the party.”
The padlock was broken off, the door opened and Ned and his father embraced warmly. He shook Don by the hand and after hasty explanations had been made they followed Yappi up the stairs. The mestizo had refused to accept any thanks and took the lead in getting them out of the place.
They made a hasty search but found nothing of importance. The men had escaped on their mounts, and it was useless to think of following them. Yappi took them to the mouth of the underground passage and showed them how to drop down in it, and they walked along it back to the dungeon and then once more went back to the courtyard before the castle.
“The rascals either took my horse or loosed it,” said the professor. “I guess I’ll have to walk home.”
“No, no, senor,” said Yappi, quietly. “I have provide for that. Two horses in yonder bush.”
And he went to the thicket indicated and led out two horses. They praised his foresight lavishly but he was indifferent to their praises. Ned then proposed that they go back to the meeting place.
Accordingly they mounted and went down the mountain to the place where they had left Terry and Jim. It was decided to wait until morning for the other two, rather than fire off their guns to attract them.
“They should be here at seven in the morning, and it won’t be long before it is that time,” Don said. “So we might as well wait.”