What they had heard of course told them that the three men whose voices they had heard were not Indians but white men. What their errand was in the cavern, it was hard to conjecture, as was also the question whether it would be prudent to advance and make their situation known to them.
They could catch the muttering mumbling of words far above, but could not understand a syllable uttered. In a few moments the sound of voices ceased altogether, for the men evidently had gone away.
While Little Rifle stood all attention, Harry was groping around with his hands.
“By jingo! they have left the rope hanging down!” he exclaimed, in a delighted whisper, as he pushed it toward his friend. “I wonder if they didn’t do that on purpose for us?”
The young trapper grasped it in his hands, and found that it was an ordinary hemp rope reaching to the floor of the cavern, and capable of bearing a heavy strain.
“Ha! ha!” softly laughed Little Rifle, “here is our deliverer,” and without a word of explanation the resolute lad sprung to the ascent, and, hand-over-hand like a sailor, went up the rope with great agility.
Harry, with an anxiety that may well be imagined, stood peering upward in the gloom, awaiting the result of this perilous venture on the part of his friend.
He held the rope grasped in both of his hands, noting, by its swaying and trembling, the progress made by the daring young trapper.
By and by the swaying of the rope ceased, by which he knew that Little Rifle was at the top.
Then Harry himself began the ascent, and had reached about half-way to the top, when Little Rifle called out, evidently in a subdued voice: