"The fellow ain't dead, Mac; anyhow he seems able to talk yet."
"All right, we'll find out what he's got to say—go on along."
West sat up, his heart bounding with sudden remembrance.
"My God! McAdams is that you?"
"You have the name—who's speaking?"
"Matt West. Good God, but this is like a miracle. I'd played my last card. Come here, one of you, and cut these strings. I cannot even move, or stand up. Is it really you, Mac? Yes, yes, I am all right; they bruised me up a bit, of course, but that is nothing. Now I have a chance to pay them out. But who are with you? and how did you come to be here?"
McAdams ran his knife blade through the lashings, feeling for them in the dark. Neither could see the other, but West realized that another man had crept up on the opposite side of him, and crouched there silently in the blackness.
"Need any help, Mac?" the latter questioned in a whisper.
"No, I've got him cut loose. This is the lad I told you about, Carlyn. You go on back, and, as soon as West gets limbered up a bit, and I hear his story, we join you out there. Then we'll know how the ground lies."
The fellow crept away unseen, and McAdams gripped West's hand.