began to climb. He had gone about a third of the way up, when
he reached the narrowest point of the channel and tried to force
himself through, but the space was so small that no matter how
much he tried, he could not get by. His gun was in his way too,
but he could not leave it below, as that would be putting it into
the hands of the poachers if they should return too soon.

In vain he twisted and squirmed, he could get no farther, and
moreover he was afraid the gun might go off by accident in his
struggles. When he found that he could not possibly go up, he
decided to go down; but he found, to his horror, that he couldn't
do that either. There he stuck, and an angrier man than Angus
Niel it would have been hard to find. A projecting rock punched
him in the stomach, and when he pressed back against the rock
behind him, to free himself, he scraped the skin off his back.
Casting prudence to the winds, he howled with pain and rage, and
the sound, carried up through the narrow passage, echoed in the
cave like the roar of a lion.

The children, meanwhile, had kept in hiding, and when they heard
these blood-curdling sounds, they at first did not know what
caused them, because, of course, they could not see what was
happening below, but they knew very soon that they were not made
by a wild animal because wild animals do not swear.

"It's Angus, stuck in the secret stairway," Alan said, smothering
his laughter. "He's too fat to get through!" He crept to the edge
and peeped down the hole. There, far below, he could see the top
of Angus's head and the muzzle of his gun.

The Chief was a boy of great presence of mind. He backed hastily
away from the hole and ran to the fall, snatching up the pan as
he passed. This he filled with water and, rushing back, he
instantly sent a small deluge down upon the head of the hapless
Angus.

The gamekeeper was dumbfounded by this new attack. Had he not
with his own eyes seen that the rocky shelf was empty? How, then,
could this thing be? He rolled his eyes upward, but there was no
one in sight. He had heard all his life tales of witches and
water cows, of spells cast upon people by fairies, of their being
borne away by them into mountain caverns and held as prisoners
for years and years; and he made up his mind that such a fate had
now befallen him.

Firmly convinced that he was the victim of enchantment, he became
palsied with terror, arid began to plead with the unseen
tormentors wh