“No,” came the reply. “I had had no opportunity of telling them.”
“You were placed on guard here by the man called Gostel?”
“Yes.”
“Well, who was it that pulled you down? There is something strange about that.”
“I saw no one,” replied the other, feeling of his throat again.
“Were others watching here with you?”
The prisoner shook his head.
“Then who did it?” demanded Ned. “That rope never dropped down from the clouds and brought you up so cleverly. Why, man, you would have had a knife into me in a second only for the rope.”
“I hoped to,” was the calm reply.
Then Ned heard a giggle in the thicket, and in a moment the vines parted and Jimmie looked out, a shrewd smile on his freckled face.