“Yes,” answered Carl, “and I’m for getting down there just as quick as possible. I’m so scared about what I saw around our fire that I’m not thinking very seriously of the loss of the Louise.”
In a moment the boys came out of a slight wrinkle which they had been traveling and looked down on the camp they had left not long before. Four figures were still moving in front of the blaze.
“Now, don’t you think we ought to hustle down there?” demanded Carl. “If we get down there without being discovered and find out that something is wrong, we can plug every one of those ginks in the back of the head before they know we’re within a mile of them.”
“That wouldn’t help much,” Jimmie answered. “We might drive those fellows away, if we were lucky enough to do so, but others might take their places. I’m stuck on finding out what they want and how they expect to get it. That’s the thing that will count.”
“Then run along and ask them,” Carl suggested, with an impatience which was not usual with the boy.
“Honest, now,” Jimmie said in a conciliatory tone, “I believe we can go down to this hostile camp and hold that fellow up for information. If we get it, we will know just what to do when we get to our own camp.”
“If we ever get there!”
“Are you going?” asked Jimmie.
“Sure, I’m going!” was the reply. “I’m game to go anywhere you’ll go. And we can’t get down there too quick, either.”
The boys started down the declivity and then halted abruptly. The Louise was swinging back to the east, and seemed about to settle down upon the shelf where the alien camp had been pitched.