ly.

"I got half a dozen nips!" answered Jimmie.

"And so did I," Dick cut in.

"Well, you boys ought to get back to the room right away," Tommy
suggested, "and have peroxide applied to the wounds. I've known of
people dying of blood poison occasioned by rat bites."

"Have you got it in camp with you?" asked Elmer.

"We're the original field hospital!" laughed Tommy. "We never leave
Chicago without taking with us everything needed in the first aid to the
wounded line. We'd be nice Boy Scouts to go poking about the country
with nothing with which to heal our wounds!"

"Boys," Elmer now said, with a mischievous grin on his face, "I want to
introduce you to Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson. I've heard that your
names are Sandy and Tommy, but that's all I know about it!"

"Green and Gregory!" laughed Tommy. "My name's Gregory. Sandy's name
isn't Sandy at all, but Charley. We call him Sandy because he looks like
he'd been rolled in sand."

"Well, we may as well be getting back to headquarters!" declared Sandy
after these original introductions had been made. "But hold on," he
continued turning back to Jimmie and Dick, with a look on his face
intended to be severe, "aren't you going to bring our provisions back?"

"The provisions," laughed Jimmie, "were hidden in the chamber where the
rats were, and you're welcome to all you can get your hands on now!"

"Oh, well," Sandy groaned, "I suppose we'll have to buy more."

"One difficulty about passing in and out of the mine so frequently,"
Tommy stated, "is that this man Ventner is likely to catch us at it.
There's no knowing what he'll do next if he finds that we're searching
the place. According to Elmer, you know," he continued, "we didn't
finish our job when we landed on you boys. He says the real game is now
about to begin."

"He's right there!" declared Jimmie.

"Strange thing Mr. Horton didn't tell us all about it!" complained
Tommy. "Where was the use of his sending us down here and making monkeys
of us? He ought to be ashamed of himself!"

"He wanted to see whether you could find out what you were here for!"
laughed Elmer. "Perhaps he understood that after you caught us, we'd
tell you all about it. He's a pretty foxy guy, that man Horton, from all
I hear about him! I'm going to Chicago some day to meet him!"

"Well, what is it we've got to look for now?" demanded Sandy.

"You just wait till we get to headquarters!" replied Jimmie.

"We ought to do that