, fearfully. "An' if he can't get out dat better we let um
stay in dere. Ain' no man kin git in dat hole. I ain' know nuttin' 'bout
no James Dean."

A half-hour before sunrise the following morning Connie started up the
slope, closely followed by 'Merican Joe, who mumbled gruesome
forebodings as he crowded so close that he had to keep a sharp lookout
against treading upon the tails of Connie's rackets. When they had
covered half the distance a black fox broke from a nearby patch of scrub
and dashed for the hole in the rock-ledge, and as they approached the
place another fox emerged from the thicket, paused abruptly, and circled
widely to the shelter of another thicket.

Arriving at the ledge, Connie took up his position squarely in front of
the hole, while 'Merican Joe, grimly grasping the helve of his belt ax,
sank down beside him, and with trembling fingers untied the thongs of
one of his snowshoes.

"What are you doing that for?" asked Connie, in a low voice.

"Me--I'm so scare w'en dat yell com', I'm 'fraid I runaway. If I ain'
got jus' wan snowshoe, I can't run."

"You're all right," smiled the boy, as he reached out and laid a
reassuring hand upon the Indian's arm, and hardly had the words left his
lips than from the mouth of the hole came the wild cry that mounted
higher and higher, and then died away in a quavering tremolo. Instantly,
Connie thrust his face close to the hole. "Hello!" he cried at the top
of his lungs, and again: "Hello, in there!"

A moment of tense silence followed, and then from the hole came the
sound of a voice. "Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello! Don't go 'way--for
God's sake! Hello, hello, hello----"

"We're not going away," answered the boy, "we've come to get you
out--James Dean!"

"James Dean! James Dean!" repeated the voice from the ground. "Get James
Dean out!"

"We'll get you out, all right," reassured the boy. "But tell us how you
got in, and why you can't get out the same way?"

"There's no way out!" wailed a voice of despair, "I'm buried alive, an'
there's no way out!"

"How did you get in?" insisted the boy. "Come, think, because it'll help
us to get you out."

"Get in--a long time ago--years and years ago--James Dean is very old.
The whole hill is hollow and James Dean is buried alive."

Connie gave up trying to obtain information from the unfortunate man
whose inconsistent remarks were of no help. "I'll see if these rocks are
loose," he called, as he scraped th