One after another the Rover boys tried to hide behind such rocks and bushes as were available. But their movements came to little. They were discovered by one of the men with Davenport, and that individual immediately set up a cry of alarm. Then the men, led by Davenport, came riding toward the spot as rapidly as the condition of the trail permitted.
“Stop where you are!” yelled the man from the oil fields. “Hands up and stop, or it will be the worse for you!”
The boys heard the rascal but paid no attention to his threat. They did their best to lose themselves in some bushes below the spot where they had landed. But the way was rough and uncertain and one after another they took another tumble, to find themselves at last hopelessly tangled up in a mass of brushwood.
“You can’t get away from us, so you might as well give up,” yelled Davenport as he rode as close as the brushwood and rocks would permit. “Come out of there one by one. If you don’t, we’ll use our guns.”
Seeing that all of the men were armed, the boys knew it would be useless to attempt to go farther, and so one by one they came out of the tangle of rocks and brushwood, their clothing torn and their hands bleeding from their rough experience. Fred was the first to emerge, and, telling his companions to “keep all of the rats covered,” Davenport dismounted and caught the youngest Rover by the arm.
“Thought you’d get away, eh?” snorted the oil man, an ugly look crossing his face. “I reckon we let you have too much liberty. After this I’ll see to it that you won’t get a yard from where we place you.”
All of the boys did their best to argue with Davenport, but the oil man would not listen to them, and in the end they were compelled to march along the trail as it wound in and out along the mountainside, at last reaching a camp close to where the cave in which they had been prisoners was located. At the camp they fell in with Tate and Jackson, who had been looking everywhere for the lads.
“How did they get away?” stormed Davenport.
“Don’t know,” answered Tate. “We haven’t made an inspection of the cave yet. They must have crawled through some kind of a hole.”
The cave was entered, and soon the rascals discovered how two of the logs had been pried apart at the top.