Tom went into the cabin, reappearing almost immediately with three camp-chairs in his hands. When each boy had appropriated one, Joe began his story, making no effort to follow Dan's narration, but telling it in such a way that his auditors saw through it as plainly as he did himself. Indeed, the whole thing was so very transparent that Tom and Bob marveled at Dan's stupidity.
"It seems to me that a child ought to have seen through it without half trying," said Joe, in conclusion. "But simple as the trick was, it is going to end in something besides fun; mind that, both of you."
"Then they wouldn't use the rope, because they were afraid that they would dump themselves down in front of the 'hant' before they could get a chance to shoot him," said Bob. "Well, they saved time by not looking for it, because it wasn't there. I never thought of the rope after I spoke about it in the letter. Well, Tom, what do you say? I am ready to face the spectre of the cave if you are."
"Talk enough," was Tom's reply.
And to show that he was in earnest about it, he picked up his camp-chair and went into the cabin.
When he came out again, he carried his double-barrel in his hands and his cartridge belt was buckled about his waist.
No one could have accused these three boys of cowardice if they had decided that they would not go near the gorge at all. It was plain that the men who were in hiding there—they were satisfied now that there were at least two of them—were fugitives from justice, and such characters ought to be left to the care of the officers of the law.
It is true that their presence in the gorge was a continual menace to the peace and comfort of the young game-wardens. They seemed to say, by their actions, "We are here to stay, and you can't get us out."
The boys took the events of the last two days as a challenge to them to come on and see what they could make by it, and the promptness with which Joe Morgan proposed the expedition, and the nervous eagerness exhibited by Tom and Bob in preparing to take part in it, indicated that they meant to do something before they came back.
"There's one thing about it," said Bob, after he had armed himself, and closed and locked the door, "we are not to be turned from our purpose by a dozen dummy ghosts, and neither will those horrid yells have the same effect upon us that they did the first time we heard them. If Dan had fired into the bushes, instead of aiming at the 'hant's' head—"