d. Arter him we tacked, detarmined ter punish
ther swab fer his imperdence. It wuz a long stern chase wot lasted ten
hours. But we finally overhauled him---"

"Why didn't your frigate sink if she had a hole stove into her below the
water liner."

Tim gave a slight start.

He had entirely overlooked this point.

Pondering a moment, he took a chew of tobacco, and replied:

"I guess ther hole wuzn't smashed all ther way through."

"Don't you know whether it was or not?"

"No; how could I go below ter look at sich a time?"

"You ought to know best."

"Waal, let it pass an' I'll go on."

"No, you won't go on."

"Why not, sir?"

"Because I won't stay here and listen to you."

"Say, sheriff d'yer mean ter insinuate as I'm a liar?"

"Oh, no. I'm too frank to insinuate what I know to be a fact, I say it
right out, openly and plainly," laughed Timberlake.

Tim eyed him with a mystified look.

He did not know whether to accept this reply as a direct insult or to
take it as a belief in his veracity.

"Wot d'yer mean?" he asked.

"Simply this--you are the most outrageous old liar I ever came in
contact with!" replied Timberlake.

"Oh!" cried Tim, in horror. "Listen ter him! You wait till I finish this
ere yarn, an' see if I'm tellin' ther truth."

"I'm afraid I won't live long enough to wait until you finish that
story," dryly answered the sheriff. "It would be too long a wait on my
part, and---"

But Fritz interrupted him just there by shouting:

"Dere dey go--dere dey go!"

Timberlake opened the front door.

"Who--the bandits?" he asked eagerly.

"Yah."

"Where are they?"

"Dey go among dem rocks."

The stage had by this time run around the fire.

The James Boys must have curved their course toward the very direction
to which the Terror was running, for Fritz had suddenly caught view of
them.

They were heading for the rocks at the base of a rugged range of hills
directly ahead of the electric stage.

Jack noticed a number of gorges, gulches and canyons splitting the
towering hills and cliffs ahead, and observed that the bandits were
heading for one of them.

He pointed this out to his companions.

"They don't see us yet!" he exclaimed, "but they will the moment they
glance back this way!"

"I think I know where they are going," said Timberlake.

"Where?' asked Jack.

"Into Dead Man's Gulch."

"What would bring them there?"

"A huge cave, where the James Boys sometimes retreat.