It was cheering information and Dick decided that as soon as he had finished his welcome repast and had rested for a short time, he would retrace his steps and rejoin his friends. Putting aside the empty dish, he turned eagerly upon his host, just as that worthy stepped back from his place by the door, fear and dismay depicted in his watery old eyes. Almost simultaneously, there fell across Dick’s sensitive ears the sound of approaching footsteps, then a voice that caused him to experience a momentary sensation of chill.
With a finger on his lips as a warning to the native, Dick scurried up the ladder, pulling it up after him. His hands were shaking. He deposited the ladder on the floor, tiptoed across the loft and lay down with his eyes at a crack.
The door of the room below was pushed rudely open, without even the formality of a knock, and three men—all of them outlaws—entered. Of the three, one was a white man—the sailor who had come ashore with the captain of the yacht. He wore a gray cap and a much-soiled suit of clothes—apparel too thin for that climate! He sat down shivering close to the fireplace, extending his blue, unmittened hands toward the blaze. He did not even look up as one of the other outlaws called loudly for food and growled unpleasantly when it did not appear forthwith.
While they ate, Dick lay watching them. He hoped that none of the outlaws would make a search of the house. Even if they did—now that the ladder was pulled up—he was fairly sure they would not come to the loft. He was feeling comparatively safe, until he became conscious of a step behind him. Then he became panic-stricken. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. He had hardly the strength to turn his head as the apparition passed, a young Indian girl not over seventeen or eighteen years of age. She had paused, looked at him in a sort of bewildered manner, then moved forward, picked up the ladder, let it slip through the hole in the floor, and proceeded to climb down to the room below.
Dick’s breath caught as he thought about the ladder projecting there through the aperture, where the Indian girl had left it. It was a strange trick of fate that had been played upon him at a most inopportune time. The outlaws now had easy access to the loft. It would be simple enough indeed to come up and take him like a rat in a trap.