"You can suit yourself, Tom Rover. But, just the same, you'll come along."

"And if we refuse?" put in Sam.

"I'll hammer you into submission."

"By jinks! but you always were a cheerful brute, Baxter," cried Sam.

"Shut up and come along," growled the bully.

Feeling it would be folly to resist, the two Rovers moved off with the party. The big guide led the way and the others followed.

"You may as well earn your salt," observed Baxter. "Here, take hold and pull one of the sleds."

He placed the rope in their hands and compelled them to haul the load, which they did unwillingly enough.

Curious as it may seem, none of the Baxter party had given a thought to the sled which Sam and Tom had had with them, and this had been left under the bushes at the spot where Husty had discovered the Rovers.

At first Tom and Sam had thought to speak about the matter, but they finally decided it would be better to run the risk of losing that portion of the outfit entirely than to place it in the hands of their enemy.

The way was rough, and it was only with the greatest of difficulty that they could drag the sleds along. But less than half an hour brought them to the spot which Bill Harney had in mind--a grand and wild place, where the mountain appeared to split in two for a distance of several hundred feet. Here there was a gorge fifty or sixty feet deep, partly choked with small scrub cedars.

"There's the hole," said Harney, advancing into the gorge and pointing with his hand.

"Better go ahead and see if it is free of bears or other wild animals,"

suggested Dan Baxter, as he came to a halt.

Rifle in hand the guide went into the opening, and made a thorough examination of the surroundings.

"Aint been no b'ars nor nothin' else here," he declared. "You can come right in."

The opening on one side of the gully was an irregular one, and beyond this was a large cave having several chambers. All was pitch dark in the inner chambers, and they lit some brushwood to give them light. Then a regular fire was started, which did much toward making the surroundings warmer and more cheerful.

Dan Baxter and his friends were hungry, and lost no time in preparing a meal. Tom and Sam were led to one side of an inner chamber, and the rope fastened to their hands was bound tightly to the protruding roots of a tree.

"Now, don't you attempt to escape," said Baxter. "If you do--well, you'll wish you hadn't, that's all."

And then he rejoined his companions in the outer chamber, leaving poor Tom and Sam to their misery.

CHAPTER XXII.

JASPER GRINDER TRIES TO MAKE TERMS.

"Well, Tom, this looks as if we had put our foot into it," was Sam's comment, delivered in a whisper.

"Don't despair, Sam," said his brother cheerfully. "We have been in worse holes, remember, and always managed to escape with a whole skin."

"That's true, but I don't see how we are going to get away now. I suppose somebody will stand on guard all the time."

"Perhaps d.i.c.k and Mr. Barrow will come to the rescue."

"If they can find the way. The wind and snow will cover the trail pretty well."

"There's no use of crying over the affair. If we can break away, I'll be for doing so."

"So will I."

"Hi, you stop your talking in there!" shouted Dan Baxter. "Plotting to run away, I reckon. It won't do you any good. If you try it, somebody will get a dose of buckshot in the leg."

"You don't mean to say you're going to stop our talking," said Tom, in indignation.

"That's just what I do mean to say. Now stop--or go hungry."

As the Rovers did not wish to starve, they relapsed into silence. A meal was being prepared by the Baxter party, and the appetizing odors floated into the inner chamber, where Tom and Sam sniffed them eagerly, for the walk and the bracing air had given them an appet.i.te.

"Smells good, don't it?" remarked Dan Baxter, as he came in, fire-brand in hand, and confronted Tom.

"What, the cave?" asked Tom carelessly.

"No, the grub."

"Oh, you are cooking something, aren't you?"

"You know well enough that we are."

"Well, I can't stop you, Baxter, so cook away."

"Don't you want something to eat?"

"To be sure we do," put in Sam. "n.o.body wants to go hungry."

"Perhaps you'll have to go hungry," said Dan Baxter significantly.

"It would be just like you to starve us, Baxter!" burst out Tom. "I know you are as mean as they make them."

"No compliments, please. I know my business, Tom Rover; and let me say I am in this game to win."

"I don't see what that has to do with our eating."

"You will see presently. I know all about what brought you here."

"And we know what brought you here," put in Sam.

"I suppose you fellows have a map, or something like it," went on Baxter, after a pause, during which he gazed curiously first at Tom and then at the youngest Rover.