The party in hiding waited on, cramped and chilled, not daring yet to rise. The man was only a few yards below them; they could hear the working of his jaws, the smacking of his lips, his grunts of appreciation; between the mouthfuls any movement they might make would assuredly be heard by him. Half an hour passed slowly by; once or twice Bob noticed that the man paused in his eating and looked somewhat anxiously in the direction in which the horsemen had disappeared; but hearing nothing, seeing nothing, he returned to his fish until his appetite was appeased. He had just retied his wallet preparatory to rising, when the sound of hoofs scattering the loose stones was heard. A few seconds later Chang-Wo dashed up, followed at a little distance by fourteen out of his sixteen men. He almost rode down the Manchu, who, having scrambled to his feet, stood in cowering alarm as the brigand chief pulled up his horse with a jerk, and rained down upon the man a shower of furious questions. Vainly the poor wretch tried to make reply; at the first word Chang-Wo shortened the long spear he carried, and with ungovernable rage drove it through him. The man fell without a groan. Then Chang-Wo, riding his horse over the prone body, roared an order to eight of his men, and with the remaining six galloped away over the crest of the hill. *CHAPTER XXIII* *The Tiger’s Lair* A Tramp by Night—A Distant View—Across the Ravine—The Cleft in the Gully—Scouting—Light and Shadow—Baffled—An Inspiration Bob and his men still crouched behind their fallen log. Here indeed had been an expressive object-lesson in the methods of the Mountain Tiger. The sight of the dead man gave Bob a sickening sense of horror. Had his friend Kobo suffered a similar, perhaps a worse fate? Or was he still alive, with a more awful fate in store? As these questions suggested themselves Bob felt his courage renewed, his determination strengthened. Be the issue what it might, for Kobo he must and would dare all.