"Use your gun, Captain Joe!" Case panted. "Alex is back there in the woods trying to get to the river."
When Clay heard the splash of water as the tin can disappeared from sight, he began wondering if what he had heard had reached the ears of the others. The lost channel was always in his mind, and he was wondering if the presence of a subterranean body of water there could have any connection with the channel which had disappeared as if by magic two or three hundred years before.
In order to settle the question as to what the outlaws knew concerning the water which must lie directly under their cave, he asked:
"Will some of you men give me a drink of water?"
"Aw, go take a drink out of the river," was the reply he received.
"Gladly!" cried Clay. "Just untie my feet and I'll show you how quickly I can get to the river."
The men laughed heartily at what they considered a good joke and continued their preparations for leaving the cavern. In a short time the man believed by Clay to be Lawyer Martin made his appearance, and then the party started up the gully turning to the east and walking over the roughest territory Clay had yet seen in that vicinity. The leader of the party paused now and then to inspect the landscape and to listen for sounds from the west river.
"What were your friends doing this afternoon," he asked presently. "They have dug up a new boat somewhere."
"I don't know," replied Clay, stumbling over the ground with two husky guards close to his sides. "Was it my friends who were doing the shooting?" he added.
"Shooting?" the leader repeated in apparent amazement. "Did you hear any shooting? Which way did it come from?"
Clay's escorts glanced at each other significantly, but said nothing. The boy was satisfied from the attitude of those about him that his chums had been attacked, but, as a matter of fact, he had heard no shooting, being at the time it took place in the cavern opening from the gully.
After what seemed to Clay to be an endless journey, the party came to the west shore of the east river. Here, in the glade to the north of the rocky ledge which they had followed, was a fairly comfortable camp with tents and bunks and plenty of cooking appurtenances.