f the handcuffs just now, but you're getting
us into trouble just the same."

"Any time we get a chance to bluff an officer out of a captive, we're
going to do it!" laughed one of the outlaws. "We're not asking you
whether you like it or not. We're pleasing ourselves in what we're
doing."

"And here's another thing," the other outlaw said, with something like a
scowl. "We've got the idea that you wouldn't be doing as much for us as
we've been doing for you. The men who came in here to hunt us down make
their headquarters at your camp. If you go back to your friends now,
you'll tell them where you saw us, and describe everything that's taken
place. Therefore, we're not going to let you go back to your camp right
away. You're going to be our guests for a time."

"What's the good of that?" demanded Tommy.

"That's our business," replied the outlaw.

"We'll never mention you to our crowd," George added.

"Anyway," the outlaw insisted, "it's safer for us to keep track of you
two kids. I'd rather have a dozen Chicago sleuths after me than three or
four husky little Boy Scouts."

"Say," Tommy asked with a grin, "do you remember those plays where a
shrinking maiden would be in the center of the stage one minute and be
grabbed by the villain the next, and be grabbed back by the hero in the
next, and be grabbed back by the villain in the next, and be grabbed
back by the hero for the final curtain?"

"I remember something like that," said the outlaw with a laugh.

"That's us!" grinned Tommy. "That's George and me! We're here to be
captured by cowboys, and bum detectives, and bearded train robbers, and
I don't know what form our imprisonment will take next."

"When we get back to Chicago," George went on, whimsically, "we're going
to write up a story of our capture by two bold, bad men who gave their
names as Red Mike of the Gulch and Daring Dan of the Devil's Dip or
something like that."

"Say," Tommy cut in, "when you called those names out of the darkness
you certainly did have those detectives buffaloed!"

"You're a pair of nervy kids, anyway," laughed the outlaw.

"Oh, this is all right," laughed Tommy. "This will be one more
experience. We've been chased by smugglers over the Pictured Rocks of
Lake Superior, and we've been chased by alligators in the Everglades of
Florida, and now we've been geezled by the bold, bad men who held up the
Union Pacific pay car."

"How do you know we did?" demanded one of the out