down and shoot as long as we've got
ammunition," the first speaker advised.

"You may as well surrender, boys!" They heard Sheriff Pete's heavy voice
saying. "I'm coming down there after you!"

The only answer from the outlaws was a volley of bullets, punctuated
with oaths. Tommy turned to Will with a low chuckle.

"This seems to be a nice quiet Boy Scout excursion, doesn't it?" he
asked. "We come up on the mountains to have a pleasant vacation, and we
butt into a scene that wouldn't be admitted to the stage of any theatre
because the critics would say that it wasn't true to life!"

"We certainly do strike life in the raw!" replied Will.

"Are you going to surrender?" shouted the sheriff from above.

"I'll bet they don't," whispered George.

"You're on!" Tommy shouted. "I'll bet they do."

The boys listened anxiously for the reply.

"I'm coming down there now!" they heard Sheriff Pete say.

"There isn't one man in a million who would dare walk into a trap like
this," Will mused. "I wonder if this sheriff we've been finding fault
with will have the nerve to do it."

"You see if he hasn't got the nerve to do it," Tommy answered.

The outlaws fired once more, and then the boys heard their weapons
clattering down the tunnel.

"That's the stuff, boys!" the sheriff said.

They heard him sliding and scrambling down the channel, and turned on
their flashlights. The sheriff paused with an exclamation of surprise,
but came steadily on in a moment, his deputies not far in the rear.

"Throw up your hands there, you with the light!" cried the officer.

"I ain't going to throw up my hands," Tommy called out with a chuckle,
"but if it'll give you any satisfaction, I'll throw up my job as a
man-hunter. I have no further use for it!"

"That must be the Boy Scouts," the voice of the Sweetwater sheriff said.
"I wonder how they got here."

As the officers came on under the rays of the searchlights, the boys
having now stepped into the main tunnel, the outlaws stumbled to their
feet and stood leaning against the wall. They were wounded in several
places and blood was flowing quite freely, but their jaws were set in
lines of determination.

The sheriffs glanced keenly about and smiled as their eyes took in the
boys grouped together in the tunnel.

"What about it?" asked Sheriff Pete.

"That's a long story," Will answered.

One of the outlaws now stepped forward, although he still held himself
upright by one hand o