“Come on!” whispered Nick to his party. “We’ll steal as near them as we can, and then let fly at them all together!” “That’s the stuff!” chuckled Patsy. Cautiously, Nick Carter went forward, with Chick and Patsy close behind. Then came the other two white men, with the four coolies. Jai Singh and Adil brought up the rear. They had managed to advance until they were within about fifty feet of the big rock behind which Nick knew the advance guard of the Bolongus was stationed. There were four in this group, and Nick intended to overcome them first if he could, thus paving the way to the next lot. If once he could get the weapons away from these twenty odd, he could safely leave them where they were, or send them down the river, bound, in care of the four coolies. Then he could take his own time about coming back with the Arnolds, unless they should determine to follow Pike over the mountains. Whatever plans Nick Carter might have formed, they were quickly knocked aside by the fact that the whole twenty-four--which was the number of Bolongus ahead of them--came rushing down at once, while another party, whose presence they had not suspected, surged up from below, hemming them in. “Let drive!” commanded Nick. “No quarter! It is fight or die now!” He laid low two of the rascals who were preparing to drive their spears into them. Then he caught another who had taken his bow from his shoulder and was fitting an arrow to the string. Chick and Patsy made good use of their pistols. Then they rushed forward, with a yell, to clean out everybody in front of them. The skirmish became lively at once. Nick Carter soon perceived that Leslie and Adil had either made a great mistake in the number of the men who had been bringing them down from the other side of the Himalayas, or else that the party had been unexpectedly augmented by other Bolongus that he had not thought were in the neighborhood. In any case, it did not take him long to realize that they were surrounded, and that there must be lots of determined fighting if they were to get out at all. “Keep close, Patsy! Mind they don’t get in between you and Chick, or me,” he warned, as he continued to pump bullets into the enemy. “Keep your heads low, both of you! They can’t send their arrows near the ground, because the rocks are in the way.” “I noticed that,” returned Chick, as he shot down a big rascal who was about to hurl a spear at him point-blank. “Their spears are worse than their arrows, it seems to me.” “Look out, Carter!” suddenly bawled Jefferson Arnold. “They’ve got Leslie again!” This was true. In some ingenious way, the dusky warriors had contrived to get Leslie separated from the others, and were forcing him to their rear. “Come on, boys!” called out Nick Carter. That was all he said, but both Chick and Patsy knew, from the tone, that it meant business.