"Gee, whiz, that makes it look bad!" ejaculated Lanky Wallace, as he too grasped the serious dilemma by which they were now confronted. CHAPTER XIX SEARCHING FOR LOST MOUNTAIN If the three boys attempted to flee from the burning rookery they would of course be discovered and possibly fired upon by that grim watcher. "Frank, do you reckon he guessed we were squatting up here and means to give us a chance to be roasted?" asked the now thoroughly alarmed Paul, not so capable of meeting trouble coolly, as Frank Allen had always shown himself to be. "I hardly believe it's quite as bad as that," the other replied. "After firing the shack, he's felt inclined to hold up and watch how his work gets to moving." "Then you think he may skip out in time to let us drop out of a window or slip down those ricketty stairs, do you?" "Let's hope so, anyhow, Paul." Lanky, however, was almost boiling over with poorly suppressed disgust. "Huh! does that Zeke think we're a bunch of Thanksgiving turkeys that he starts a fire under our feet, which, given a little free scope is going to make this place feel like a Dutch oven? I object to being finished in such a cheap way." He moved his gun menacingly as he said this. "Do you mean you want to get a crack at Zeke, and tumble him off his pony out there?" queried Paul. "Well, maybe it'd do the job just as well if I shot the cayuse instead," Lanky suggested, drawing the line at taking human life, something that so far in his existence he had never tried to do. "Hold your horses, Lanky," advised Frank. "He may be going in another minute or two, and it'll be some little time before that blaze can reach us. As a last resort, if all else fails, I'll agree to let you shoot at Zeke to cripple him or his bronc so that he'll not be able to ride away to warn Yesson, or, on the other hand, harm us here." Three minutes more passed. So worked up were Lanky Wallace and Paul Bird that it seemed double that time to them. The fire downstairs was now roaring, and the eyes of the boys began to smart because of the fumes of acrid smoke that ascended the open stairs. "Oh, bully! Bully! He's whirled his pony around and is going off on a gallop!" announced Paul. "About time, if he wanted to save his bacon; because I'd have got a bead on his pony in another minute," Lanky said in tones that breathed both jubilation and threats. "Me for the window and a long jump!" "Take things coolly, Lanky," came from Frank. "You may break a leg if you go over in a hurry. The fire hasn't done much on this side of the house so far, and we can take our own time in getting down. Since the stairs are all ablaze, of course our only road is by way of the window. Here's a rope on this old bed mattress. If it's strong enough we can make good use of it."