“Oh, Nancy, I can’t make it go off,” Billie sobbed under her breath.

“Give it to me,” whispered Nancy, seizing the gun and leveling it with trembling hands at Lupo.

“Look out, Lupo,” called a man below, as the barricade went down with a crash.

But Lupo was in no mood to listen to warnings. Bounding over a fallen trunk, he wrenched the gun from Nancy’s hand.

At this moment, a man walked into the room and marched straight up to the group of mountaineers.

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen,” he said in a voice loud enough to be heard by everybody, “is this Sunrise Camp?”


CHAPTER XVII.

THE FORCE OF ELOQUENCE.