“Then just as you say, Ned, we’ll try it,” Jack agreed. “I’ll see if I can stand this rank smell a little while longer. Perhaps it may seem so bad that none of the rustlers’ll care to crawl in and look around. You can kind of give them to understand that one of your crowd has keeled over earlier in the fight. There’s just a little hope it may pan out. Now, for goodness’ sake get a move on as soon as you can. I’ll find a place behind some loose stones to lie down and play dead. Hope when the time comes for me to crawl out I won’t be too weak to move.”
Each of the other scouts squeezed Jack’s hand. He was a prime favorite in the troop, and they disliked leaving him behind more than they could tell; but there seemed little choice and Jack was always so willing to sacrifice himself for the good of others.
Ned took the lead.
“Keep close behind me,” he told Harry and Jimmy, as they started to crawl over to where they knew the exit must be; for the smoke was now getting so dense that even the faint light was shut out.
Reaching this place Ned shouted, though he found himself so hoarse that he hardly knew his own voice; and several times choked, as though he was close to the border of having a fit.
“Hello! hello out there! we want to surrender! We’re choking, and can’t stand it any longer. Don’t fire on us, and we’ll come out! Hello! hello!”
There came an answering hail, close at hand.
“All right, come along, but be sure and hold your hands up over yer heads, or you might get hurt! understand that, kids?”
“Yes we’re nearly all in! Here we come!”
With that Ned led the way, and staggering weakly, the three scouts groped their passage through the haze of bitter smoke toward the faint gleam of daylight that they could begin to see through the pall.