rly this morning. I couldn't find you before, or you should have had
the news sooner. It isn't safe for you to go into the mine!"

"Your information," grinned Will, "comes a little bit late, but it's all
right, just the same! Ventner is in there, and there are two men with,
him. It's a mystery how they made their way in without being discovered,
but it seems that they did so."

"What are you going to do?" asked Canfield.

"We're going on into the mine."

"In the face of my warning?"

"It's just this way," answered Will. "We left two of the boys on guard
in this passage, not so very long ago, and they have disappeared. We
suspect that Ventner and the two men to whom you refer have good reason
to know something of their whereabouts."

"They won't injure the boys!" pleaded Canfield.

"We don't mean to give them a chance!" insisted Elmer. "We're going to
jerk those boys out so quick it'll make their heads swim!"

"But it's positively dangerous!" urged the caretaker.

"If there wasn't an element of danger in the situation, we wouldn't be
here!" replied Will. "I don't see as we need to run away from two
hold-up men, anyway," the boy went on. "Here are five boys and one full
grown man in the gangway. We ought to give a pretty good account of
ourselves, in case some one starts anything!"

"Where's the fifth boy?" asked Canfield. "It seems to me that you're
getting quite an accumulation of boys in here!"

"Two of the boys are Jimmie Maynard and Dick Thompson!" answered Will.
"You know you informed me quite positively not long ago that the two
lads were hundreds of miles from this place by this time."

"You might barricade the hold-up men and starve them out," suggested
Canfield, "that is, if you're sure they're in there!"

"We have just had a wireless from the interior," Elmer answered. "There
are three men in there, all right!"

"Well, it won't take any longer to starve three out than it would one!"
declared Canfield.

"Yes," Elmer cut in, "and about the first time the hold-up men got good
and hungry, they'd be sending out Tommy's ears or one of George's
fingers just as a warning to us not to meddle with their appetites."

Before long Jimmie began wig-wagging again, but before any words could
be formed the waiting boys heard a distant scuffle, a short, quick cry
of alarm, and then the phosphorus-covered palms disappeared from sight.

"They've got Jimmie!" Elmer said in a tone of dismay.

"Well, what are we