less
cornered. Well, some of the men had their families here with them, and
a couple of children disappeared. The story got started that there was
a big puma--the king of them all--carrying off the little ones, and my
brother and I awoke one morning to find every laborer missing. They
departed bag and baggage. Afraid of the pumas."

"What did you do?"

"Well, we organized ourselves and our white helpers into a hunting
party and killed a lot of the beasts. There wasn't any big one though."

"And what had become of the children?"

"They weren't eaten at all. They had wandered off into the woods, and
some natives found them and took care of them. Eventually, they got
back home. But it was a long while before we could persuade the Indians
to come back. Since then we haven't had any trouble, and I don't want
Tim, with his superstitious fancies, to start any."

"But the min are gone!" insisted the Irish foreman, who had listened to
this story as he and the others walked along.

"We'll find them," declared Mr. Titus.

But though they looked all along the big shaft, and though the place
was well lighted by extra lamps that were turned on when the
investigation started, no trace could be found of the workmen, who had
been left in the tunnel to finish tamping the blast charges. The party
reached the rocky heading, in the face of which the powerful explosive
had been placed, and not an Indian was in sight. Nor, as far as could
be told, was there any side niche, or blind shaft, in which they could
be hiding.

Sometimes, when small blasts were set off, the men would go behind a
projecting shoulder of rock to wait until the charge had been fired,
but now none was in such a refuge.

"It is queer," admitted Walter Titus. "Where can the men have gone?"

"That's what I want to know!" exclaimed Tim.

"Are you sure they didn't come out the mouth of the tunnel?" asked Job
Titus.

"Positive," asserted Tom. I was there all the while, rigging up the
fires."

"We'll call the roll, and check up," decided Job Titus. "Get Serato to
help."

The Indian foreman had not been in the tunnel with the last shift of
men, having left them to Tim Sullivan to get out in time. The Indian
foreman was called from his supper in the shack where he had his
headquarters, and the roll of workmen was called.

Ten men were missing, and when this fact became known there were uneasy
looks among the others.

"Well," said Mr. Titus, after a pause. "