Part 18 (1/2)

He kept right on until finally he rounded a turn in the pa.s.s and saw Jim Dart and the girls about a hundred yards ahead.

As they were gathered behind a big rock, as though hiding, he knew that something was wrong right away.

Hop came to a pause.

Though he wanted to know what was up, he felt that it would be best to go it alone, so he did not walk ahead and join them.

While he stood back close to the cliff a revolver shot rang out.

He saw Jim raise his head above the rock and take a quick look in the direction it came from, and then all was still.

It so happened that Hop had got there just in time to hear the shot that ended the career of the fourth outlaw.

The Chinaman did not know what it meant, so he looked for a way to get up close to Jim and the girls without being seen by them.

If he went on through the narrow defile he could not do it.

Then he looked up and, much to his satisfaction, he saw a place that could be climbed quite easily, he thought.

He decided to go on up, and then work his way along until he was directly above those in waiting.

Hop was quite agile for a Chinaman who did not like work a great deal.

He was soon ascending the craggy way, and in less than two minutes he was at the top of the cliff.

Once there he found that it was comparatively level, and he walked along fearlessly.

But he could not help noticing that there was a fissure similar to that which formed the pa.s.s on the other side, and, being curious to see what was down there, he made his way to the edge.

A smothered cry of astonishment came from the Chinaman's lips as he peered downward.

It was the ”hole,” as the outlaws termed it, that Hop was looking into, and there was Young Wild West, tied to the post, in plain view!

”Lat petty goodie--or petty bids, so be!” exclaimed Hop, under his breath, ”Me finder Misler Wild petty quicken. But um bad Mexican mans goatee him, so be.”

Keeping out of sight, he lay flat at the top of the cliff and saw the excited outlaws as they moved about in the hole below him.

The distance was about forty feet, but Hop soon discovered a way to get down, or nearly all the distance, anyhow.

But he did not intend to risk doing it just then.

The excited voices of the men came to his ears, and he was not long in making out that they were talking about a man that had just been shot as he went out to get the body of a comrade.

From his position he could see about all there was to be seen in the fissure.

There was the grave the villains had placed the two bodies in, and which they had started to fill.

He counted ten men there, too, and he shook his head when he found there were so many of them.

”Misler Wild allee samee in um bad box, so be,” he muttered. ”Me better go tell Misler Jim, so be.”