"You'll be sorry if you do!" threatened the captive.
Notwithstanding this threat, the fellow was bound hand and foot. During the process of the work, which was performed none too gently by Jackson, Collins called out to his friends in the other valley, but there was no response. They were probably too busy with their plotting against the boys to hear the shouts.
This business completed, Jimmie beckoned Ned aside.
"Here's my idea," he said. "The Vixen's tanks didn't blow up when she burned and dropped. When it comes night I can go and get the gasoline. The tanks were full, were they not?"
"Yes, chock full. The driver seemed to have fitted her out for a long run. But we may be able to get the stuff before dark. The Vixen did not land in the valley where they are, but in a canyon over to the west. Suppose you go over there and see what the chances are?"
"All right!" replied the boy. "And if the tanks of the Vixen are not full, we'll steal the fuel out of that automobile when it gets dark!"
"That's a good idea, too!" laughed Ned.
Jimmie hastened away, keeping in the gully as long as possible and dodging around friendly cliffs when it came to climbing over the ridge which shut in the valley on the west. The gully cut across the valley, east and west, and was very deep at the east end.
After the disappearance of the boy, Ned removed Collins to the deep end of the cut and placed Jackson there as a guard. He did not want the captive to know what was going on, as a shout to his friends, if they again visited the ledge, might put them in possession of the facts regarding the empty tanks of the Nelson. Then it would be an easy matter for them to prevent the getting of the gasoline from the wrecked Vixen.
Then Ned, hearing no more from the alleged officers, went to work on the planes, and succeeded in getting a long strip sewed in before Jimmie returned with his report.