"Have I got to carry these whiskers with me?" grinned Patsy.
"You'd better not stop to remove them now. I put them on to stay. Go!"
And Patsy went.
Nick remained where he was for a while, thinking deeply, and altogether satisfied with what he had accomplished; but after a little he rose, and took his way back into the cave, intending to see what Handsome and Madge were doing, and if they were making any effort to free themselves.
But after he had reëntered the cave, and had covered the twenty rods that intervened between it and the movable rock, he stopped in astonishment and stared.
The rock was pushed wide open.
With a bound he darted forward and entered the place, but only to find that Madge and Handsome had both disappeared. Their bonds were lying upon the floor of the cavern, but they were no longer there themselves.
Nick did not wait to see more than that then.
He turned away on a run, and darted through the galleries with all the speed he could summon under the circumstances—and he came out into the valley, where the sun was shining, directly behind his two escaped prisoners, for they had not preceded him by more than a minute, evidently.
With one wild spring he was upon them, and as Handsome turned to defend himself, Nick hit him with his fist, so that he sent him reeling across the grass, where he fell senseless to the earth.