"Then we are virtually prisoners?"
"I'm afraid there is no other way of putting it, old fellow. We must be careful and keep our eyes open night and day, for we are in just about as bad a dilemma as we ever have experienced."
[CHAPTER XXVII.]
IN NEED OF A FRIEND.
Tom's guess had hit the nail on the head. It was all true. Jim Stapleton and Seth Ingalls were not the first men to have their brains turned by an insatiable lust for gold. On every other subject perfectly normal, they were insane on this one topic.
It was the peculiar light that shone in Stapleton's eyes when he spoke of the yellow metal that had first excited Tom's doubts. Seth Ingalls' sullen, taciturn manner had shown that he was afflicted with a different form of the same mania. In Jim Stapleton's case it took the twist of a desire to confide in the boys his glorious prospects. In Seth Ingalls the same malady induced a dark, secretive manner and a suspicion that everybody was in search of their secret.
The alarming situation of our two young friends may be thus summed up. They were in the hands of two desperate and powerful lunatics, who almost assuredly would not let them depart until the fabulous deposit of gold was discovered. The boys did not dare even to mention the subject of leaving the cavern or the camp, for fear of arousing the men's suspicions, in which case it appeared almost certain that the two crazed miners would unhesitatingly forcibly restrain them or kill them.