"What is it?" Ned asked Dode, as he pulled at his sleeve.
"There's another door," the lad explained. "It opens on the slope on the west side of the ridge we are under. We can go that way without being seen."
"That's just the thing!" Jimmie exclaimed. "We can get out and join Frank in the mess outside! Then I reckon we'll put the skids under the outlaws!"
Dode led the way to the opening indicated, passed, with the others at his heels, through a long passage, and finally came to a plank door which was securely fastened on the inside. From this position the racket outside became only a hum.
The boy unfastened the door and swung it inside. Beyond lay the slope, and, beyond that, the valley and the distant mountains. The air of the night was sweet and clear after the close atmosphere of the underground room.
From the other side of the ridge, which was not very high, came shots and the vicious shrieks of a pestered mule! Ned turned to the south, from which direction the clamor came, and passed as swiftly as possible along the slant of the elevation.
"Are you going to attack the outlaws from the rear?" asked Teddy. "We are taking the wrong course if you want to go back to camp."
"Huh!" Jimmie grunted, trudging along puffing at every breath, "we've got to find Frank and Uncle Ike, I guess."
When the party came to the end of the ridge under which the counterfeiters had been working, they faced the valley, some distance away, in which the cabin of Mary Brady stood. Through the moonlight they could just distinguish the crude stone chimney of the structure.
"Now, Ned," Jimmie explained, "if we turn up the slope here and do a little shooting when we reach a good elevation, the counterfeiters will think they are being attacked by a fresh party and duck back to the cave. Then Frank can come along with that blessed old mule. Did you ever hear a lop-eared old rascal of the mule tribe make such a racket? I wonder what Frank was doing to him?"