The shooting presently ceased. Whether the rustlers considered that they had accomplished the end they had in view and utterly demoralized the enemy; or, discovered the change of base on the part of the four scouts, no one was able to more than guess. "Seems to me I can hear somebody talking close by," Jack remarked, when some time had passed without any renewal of the bombardment. "Get ready to repel boarders, then!" urged Harry, "for they must have discovered where we've crawled. Do you think they'll try to carry the fort by assault, Ned?" "I don't believe so, if they're the kind of men I take them to be," replied the scout master. "It would take more than a dozen desperate men to get in here past the hot fire we'd start playing on them, and I reckon there isn't that many in the bunch. No, if they do anything at all, look out for some trick." "But they can't drop down on us, because there's only one entrance and we've got that covered," Jack asserted. "It's dark enough in here, but we could see if anybody came against that line of light, and pepper him in a jiffy. I don't see what way they could fool us, Ned." "I hope I'm mistaken, that's all," the other returned, but his vigilance did not relax a particle, nor was he at all sanguine as to the rustlers going away and leaving them to make their escape as they pleased. The minutes dragged along. Every little while Jimmy would declare that he caught those low voices again, or it might be a rustling sound that puzzled him. Some of the other scouts admitted that they heard something of the same sort, though unable to explain what it might mean. These things kept them constantly on the alert. Their nerves were held up at a high tension all the while they crouched there, keeping continual watch and ward. Jimmy had several times grumbled that it seemed like a shame, that four able-bodied scouts should be bottled up in this silly way, and begged Ned to think up a plan that would change the situation around, giving them a chance to play the aggressor. He was about starting in for the third time to vent his disgust, when the others heard him begin to sniff. "What's the matter, Jimmy; think you smell dinner cooking?" jeered Jack. "No, I don't, more's the pity; but I did get a whiff of the most disagreeable smoke that ever was, or could be. There she comes again, with the breeze sendin' the same right into this little snuggery, hot-footed. Oh! my, don't that take the cake, though? Whatever can they be burnin' and how does it happen to get in here?" "It's the trick I told you they'd be playing on us, Jimmy," said Ned, seriously. "That's what they call the stink weed, and the smoke'll drive us out of here yet." CHAPTER XX. SMOKED OUT.