“Give it up,” answered the scout. “It must be that this has something to do with those bullion robberies at the Three-ply.” “Vell, meppy. I can’t undershtand nodding aboudt id, only I haf sooch a sickness. Ach, ach! Oof I don’d ged vell, id vill be some hardt plows for Frieda, I bed you.” Rising dizzily to his feet, the scout began groping about him. He touched a steep, jagged wall on every side save one. He looked up and saw a circular patch of sky, glimmering with stars; then the truth dawned upon him. “We’re in an old mine, baron,” he announced. “Yah? Iss dere any vay to ged oudt?” The scout’s distress was rapidly passing. With every minute he was getting better, and feeling more like himself. His belt and guns had been taken from him, and his money and watch were missing from his pockets; but his matches had been left, and he was able to make a brief survey of the shaft. As nearly as he could judge, it was some thirty feet from the bottom of the shaft to the top. The walls were straight up and down, so that scaling them without a rope, or ladders, was an impossibility. Oft at one side of the shaft a level had been run. The baron was sitting in front of the black opening, and the scout peered over his head into the dark. “It’s an abandoned mine, all right,” averred the scout. “I vish dot ve couldt apandon id,” said the baron. “I mighdt schust as vell be in chail as in a blace like dis. Und id vas all so sutten! Vy, Puffalo Pill, I didn’t haf no shance to do any shooding mit my guns, or any fighding mit my fists. Two ropes tropped ofer my headt, my horse vent righht oudt from unter me, und dere I vas, mit Inchuns piled t’ree deep on top. Und den dot shmell!” “Come, come, baron,” adjured the scout, “brace up! Those Apaches have stowed us away here for safe-keeping, but they have left us the use of our hands and feet, and perhaps we won’t have to stay here, after all. Pull yourself together and we’ll see where that level will take us.” “Meppy id vill take us oudt oof dis hole!” exclaimed the baron, getting up. “No such good luck as that. Those reds and that white scoundrel must have known about this place before they dropped us into it. I’m obliged to them for not doing us any injury. No matter what happens to you in this life, baron, there’s always something to be thankful for.” It was an odd adventure. In all the scout’s experience with Indians, he had never before known them to fall back on a drug when they wished to put an enemy “out of the running.” More than likely it was their white leader who had furnished the drug, however, and had planned to use it. “Vell,” said the baron, “I t’ink ve can feel t’ankful dot ve’re alife, even oof ve don’d got no guns left, und no vay oof gedding oudt oof dis hole. Meppy, Puffalo Pill, dose fellers vas going to leaf us down here undil ve shtarve to deat’!”