"Oh, Lyman doesn't want to leave us," was the reply. "We've arranged a settlement with him."
Ned did not believe this. He knew that the Lyman concession was a valuable one, and that the cattleman would put up a long fight before sacrificing it.
"Send him down here then," Ned answered. "If he is voluntarily staying with you, he can return if he wants to. Send him down!"
"He is afraid you'll try some trick on him," was the reply.
The whole afternoon passed in just such conversation as this—talk which brought no results worth mentioning. Ned did not believe that Lyman was remaining with the newcomers voluntarily. He did not believe that Lyman was suspicious of him.
The men in the other valley frequently visited the ledge and talked with Ned, but the boy saw that they were quietly making arrangements to surround him. Now and then the figure of an Indian appeared on the elevations about the valley, which was the crater of an extinct volcano.
A little study showed Ned that in some long forgotten time the two valleys had formed a great crater, and that this had been cut in two by the elevation of a mass in the center. High up above this dead crater, on the north, stretched the bulk of the mountain, the eruption having taken place on its south slope.
But while Ned talked with the visitors, argued with them, threatened, he kept at work on the planes, and at nightfall had them completed. The canvas had been put on double and sewed on very strongly, so the boy believed that it was as good a machine as ever that he contemplated getting out that night.
"But," argued Jimmie, when the plans were laid, "we can't all go in the Nelson. How are you going to carry Lyman, Jackson and me?"
Jimmie thought for a moment and then added: "But we haven't got Lyman yet. We'll have to come back after him, I take it, after we land Jackson outside."