“But no sooner had I cried out for help than someone clapped a hand over my mouth and I couldn’t make a loud sound. Then I was bound and gagged and stretched out on something by which I was pulled along the ground. It seemed like a big sled.”
The boys uttered exclamations of surprise.
“What’s the matter?” Mr. Snodgrass asked.
“Nothing, only that we saw the marks of the log runners of the stone-boat on which you were carried away,” explained Jerry. “We tried to trace the strange marks,” he said, describing them, “but we failed.”
“Yes, a stone-boat,” agreed the narrator. “But they didn’t use it for hauling stone after they used it to give me an unexpected ride.”
“What did they use it for?” Ned asked.
“To haul cattle on.”
“Cattle!” cried the boys.
“Yes. They had a sort of fence built around the edge of the big, low, flat stone-boat. They would load it with cattle in the ravine and by means of pulleys and rope work it through the secret passage. That was done so the cattle would make no mark on the ground, telling in what direction they had been taken.”
“It sounds pretty complicated,” said Jerry. “But maybe it’s easy when you come to the details. What about the secret passage in the ravine? We suspected one but we couldn’t discover it.”