“Might gives right,” said one of the men sententiously.  “It will be best for you to do as we bid you without too much back talk.”

“What are you—­highwaymen?” asked Rodney.

“You’d better not talk too much.  Get off that horse!”

Rodney saw that remonstrance was useless, and obeyed the order.

One of the men seized the horse by the bridle, and led him.

“Walk in front!” he said.

“Where are you going to take me?” asked Rodney.

“You will know in due time.”

“I hope you will let me go,” urged Rodney, beginning to be uneasy.  “I am expected home this evening, or at all event I want to get there.”

“No doubt you do, but the Miners’ Rest will have to get along without you for a while.”

“Do you know me then?”

“Yes; you are the boy clerk at the Miners’ Rest.”

“You both put up there about two weeks since,” said Rodney, examining closely the faces of the two men.

“Right you are, kid!”

“What can you possibly want of me?”

“Don’t be too curious.  You will know in good time.”

Rodney remembered that the two men had remained at the hotel for a day and night.  They spent the day in wandering around Oreville.

He had supposed when they came that they were in search of employment, but they had not applied for work and only seemed actuated by curiosity.  What could be their object in stopping him now he could not understand.

It would have been natural to suppose they wanted money, but they had not asked for any as yet.  He had about fifty dollars in his pocketbook and he would gladly have given them this if it would have insured his release.  But not a word had been said about money.

They kept on their journey.  Montana is a mountainous State, and they were now in the hilly regions.  They kept on for perhaps half an hour, gradually getting upon higher ground, until they reached a precipitous hill composed largely of rock.

Here the two men stopped as if they had reached their journey’s end.

One of them advanced to the side of the hill and unlocked a thick wooden door which at first had failed to attract Rodney’s attention.  The door swung open, revealing a dark passage, cut partly through stone and partly through earth.  Inside on the floor was a bell of good size.

One of the men lifted the bell and rang it loudly.

“What does that mean?” thought Rodney, who felt more curious than apprehensive.

He soon learned.

A curious looking negro, stunted in growth, for he was no taller than a boy of ten, came out from the interior and stood at the entrance of the cave, if such it was.  His face was large and hideous, there was a hump on his back, and his legs were not a match, one being shorter than the other, so that as he walked, his motion was a curious one.  He bent a scrutinizing glance on Rodney.