her."

Frank was silent; he seemed to be thinking.

"I have it!" he finally cried, striking his hands together.

"Kape it," advised Barney. "It's th' ounly thing ye're loikely to get
around this place, my laddybuck."

"By my friends she must have meant Walter Clyde and his companions,
Graves and Kerney. They have had time to cruise down the river, and they
are here. I'll wager that I am right!"

"Ye may be. But soay! Look down there. So hilp me, there come some ay
th' spalpanes, an' they have a prisoner!"

Barney was right. Several Danites were entering the pocket, conducting
in their midst a captive. He was a small man, with red hair and
whiskers.

"Heavens above!" gasped Frank, thunderstruck. "It's Professor Scotch!"

CHAPTER XXI.

HUMAN BEASTS.

It was indeed the little professor, who had, in some unaccountable
manner, fallen captive to the Danites.

How it had happened the boys could not conceive.

"Be jabez! thot bates me!" gurgled Barney Mulloy, his eyes bulging.
"It's hundreds av moiles from here Oi thought th' professor wur this
minute."

"And I thought the same," said Frank. "How it comes that he is here I
cannot understand."

"It's a moighty bad scrape he is in, me b'y."

"That is right. Now I know what Miskel meant when she said my friends
had arrived and were already in the snare."

"The profissor makes but wan, an' she said 'friends.'"

"That is right. She must have meant Clyde and the others. That would
make it appear that the professor came with them."

"Sure."

"In that case, where are Clyde and the two explorers, Graves and Kerney?
Have they been killed already?"

"It moight seem thot way."

"It appears likely; but, if such is the case, I cannot understand why
Professor Scotch was spared."

"No more can Oi, Frankie."

The boys were at their wits' end, and they were in an intensely agitated
frame of mind.

Suddenly Frank clutched Barney's arm, pointing down into the pocket, and
crying:

"Look! look! the professor has broken away! He is running for his life!
But he cannot escape! They are hot after him."

It was true. The little man had made a desperate break for liberty, but
it was folly to do so, as the Danites soon overtook him. One of them, a
stout man, with a short white beard, held a revolver in his hand. He
reversed the weapon, grasping it by the barrel, and struck the professor
down with the butt.

The sight made Frank's blood boil.

"I will remembe