“Why, confound it all——” burst out Tom, but somehow the sight of that tall, motionless figure, with the expressionless face staring unblinkingly at them, and the revolver pointed menacingly in their direction, made him break off short.
“Oh, all right, then,” he said. “I guess we’ll have to. You’ve got the drop on us. But if there were any authorities near, you’d hear of this.”
Before the boys had fairly noticed the movement a revolver was pointing at them.
The ghost of a smile flitted across the tall Chinaman’s hitherto fixed visage. But he made no comment. Instead, he turned to the recumbent Fu, and spoke sharply to him in Chinese. As he was addressed, Fu rose with alacrity and bowed low three times. He seemed to be terrified out of his wits, and fairly whimpered as the stern gaze of his majestic countryman fell upon him.
“White boys walk in front,” ordered the tall Chinaman, motioning toward the clump of brush from which he had so suddenly materialized.
They now saw that there was a narrow trail leading through it. And so, down this narrow path the odd procession started—the two lads in front, and behind the oddly assorted pair of Mongolians.
It would be wrong to say the boys were frightened. To be frightened, a certain amount of previous apprehension is necessary. This thing had happened so suddenly and was so utterly inexplicable that they were fairly stunned. Their sensations, as they walked among the thick-growing bushes, were not unlike those of persons in a dream. Somehow, at every turn of the path, they expected to wake up.
And wake up they did presently. The wakening came as, after traversing the narrow trail for a half mile, they suddenly emerged on a camp under a clump of big pines. At one side of the open space in which three tents were pitched, the stream boiled and roared. On the other, the precipice shot up. But the camp was screened from view from above by the brush which grew out of cracks in the cliff-face. Beyond the river another wooded precipice arose. This was a frowning rampart of bare, scarred rock. All this uneasily impressed the boys. They could perceive that they were in a sort of natural man-trap.
This sense of uneasiness increased as, their first rapid glance over, they observed details. In front of one of the tents was seated a tall, lanky figure, dressed in rough mackinack trousers, calf skin boots, a blue shirt open to expose a sinewy throat, and, to crown all, a battered sombrero. This man was seated on an old soap box and strumming on a banjo as they entered the glade.