il eyes.

There was really only one thing to do, and that was to make them
prisoners. Once that had been accomplished, at least they might pass a
peaceful night; and then in the morning, if the humor seized them, it
would be just as easy to let the men go as to keep them.

But how on earth were they to tie the two men up? It looked like a hard
proposition, and Giraffe had to cudgel his brains with considerable
gusto before he was able to produce any result. But it dawned upon him
finally that if the men were compelled to lie flat on their faces on the
ground, and place their hands behind them, Bumpus might straddle each in
turn, and fasten their wrists, while he, Giraffe threatened with the
guns.

"Listen to me," he said, with the air of a commander giving his final
orders on the field of battle; "Both of you have got to lie down on your
faces, and put your hands behind your back; do you understand?"

"Be yuh agoin' tuh tie us up?" asked Si, his face as black as a
thundercloud.

"Just that, and nothing more," replied Giraffe, resolutely. "You think
that because we're only two boys that we'll stand for a heap; but that's
where you're away off your base. Get busy now, and down on your
marrowbones, both of you!"

"Air yuh agoin' tuh let us go free in the mornin'?" asked Ed Harkness,
already on his knees, for he wished to placate that uneasy fat boy, who
kept raising his gun again and again, as though anxious to press the
trigger just a little harder all the time.

"If you don't give us any trouble, we might; because so far as we're
concerned we're not up here to help the game warden arrest you fellows.
Lie down now, or else we'll have to help you!"

This was a ferocious threat for Giraffe to make; and doubtless he would
have been exceedingly loth to put it into operation; but then the case
was a desperate one, and required a remedy of like nature.

Even such a fire-eater as Si Kedge "threw up the sponge," as Bumpus put
it, and knuckled down to the half grown tyrant. Perhaps he realized that
in his half boozy condition he was in no shape to grapple with the
dilemma by which he and his companion found themselves faced. What with
their hands tied by the fact of their guns having been taken by Cale
Martin, they were perfectly helpless. And two firearms held in the hands
of a couple of determined boys can be just as dangerous as if grown men
had them.

So, still uttering more or less protestations, coupled with hard