If they had any hope of escaping that night they must have been disappointed as one of the gang was constantly on the watch, and the boys knew it would be useless to try to leave the cave.
"I wonder where John is," said Nat, just before he fell asleep. "Why did he desert us?"
"He hasn't deserted us," said Jack, speaking with conviction. "I'll bet he's gone for help."
"Looked as if he was running away," remarked Nat, who had not lost the sudden distrust he felt on the Indian's part.
In spite of their plight the boys slept well, and when morning came they were given some boiled eggs, bread and coffee, a meal, which, as Jack remarked, would have been a credit to a city hotel, to say nothing of a cave in the mountains. It made little difference, the boys thought, that the eggs were of some wild bird, and not of the domestic hen.
After breakfast the man who had been addressed as Sid came to where the captives were, in the smaller cave.
"If you boys will promise not to try to escape," he said, "I'll let you out for a breath of fresh air."
"You mean not try to escape at all?" asked Jack.
"That's what," Sid replied.
"Then we'll stay here," announced Jack.