nife into me in a second only for the rope."

"I hoped to," was the calm reply.

Then Ned heard a giggle in the thicket, and in a moment the vines parted
and Jimmie looked out, a shrewd smile on his freckled face.

"Why didn't you follow the line to the end?" he asked, with a chuckle.
"Then you would have come to the life saver."

"I was so rattled for a moment that I did not think of that," was the
reply. "How did you come to be here?"

"I followed you," replied the boy.

"And you have been lying out there in the thicket all the time I have been
in the house?"

"Why, yes, of course."

"Well, you did a good job," Ned said, taking the boy by the hand. "The
cowboy stunt you have been practicing so long came into good use at
last."

It was now getting quite dark, and lights showed in the house. From where
the boys stood they could not see the lighted front windows, but only the
reflections on the slope in front of the structure.

"I knew it would prove handy in time," grinned Jimmie. "I caught this
gazabo on the fly, eh?"

"I can't understand how you managed it, in this thicket," Ned said.

"There's a clear space there where he leaped at you," Jimmie said. "I saw
him rising to spring and dropped it over his head, like a bag over a blind
pig. What you goin' to do with him, now you've got him?"

Ned turned to the prisoner with a smile on his face.

"What would you suggest?" he asked.

"Gee! You've got your nerve," Jimmie exclaimed. "Leave it to him an'
you'll fill his pocket with yellow ones an' turn him loose to carve you
up."

"If you release me," the captive replied, evidently taking the question in
good faith, "I'll leave the country."

"Is that on the square?" demanded Jimmie, with a grin at Ned.

"There is a condition, however," the man added, "and that is that you make
it appear that I was killed in defending the house."

"What's the answer?" asked Jimmie, while Ned stood by wondering if he had
not struck a lead of good luck at last.

"I'm sick of the game," the prisoner replied. "I'm not in it for money,
anyway, and the other motive is no longer of avail to me."

"If you'll tell me everything you know concerning this plot against the
Gatun dam," Ned said, "I'll release you after the case is ended."

"Not a word," replied the other, closing his lips tightly, as if to shut
back words seeking utterance.

"Then we'll have to find a little coop to put you in," Jimmie said. "I
wish we had you b