Then the front door was thrust open, and Frank, and Jack, and Harry, and Glen, and Peter dashed through, shouting at the top of their voices. Jack even lifted up his chin and howled “In the prison cell I sit.”
“Prison nothin’,” Jimmie exclaimed, indignantly. “We was just goin’ out to find you fellers.”
“That’s what the guard at the door said,” cried Jack. “He told us that you were expected out any minute.”
The lads danced about like mad creatures for a moment, and then settled down to meet the situation in which they found themselves.
“Where are the guards?” asked Ned.
“If they are still going at the pace they set out in,” laughed Frank, “they must be pretty near up to San Francisco by this time. I never saw such running in my life.”
“Why didn’t you capture them?” asked Jimmie.
“For the same reason you did not capture the men who were inside,” laughed Frank.
“But we did capture ’em,” insisted Jimmie. “We’ve got ’em locked up in a chamber that opens from that corner.”
“Is that true?” asked Frank.