He of the terrible eyes caught me roughly by the shoulders and drew me to a sitting posture, so that I saw where we were—on a rock-strewn ledge of some cliffs, which I supposed to be those we had seen on our left from the valley. But owing to the rise of the ledge toward the front I could not see the lower land, only the far, opposing cliffs, blue and white and yellow, with the fringe of trees a-top. And lying on their bellies at the verge of the shelf on which we were, I then saw two other men, with their rifles beside them, lying like scouts, gazing down intently on the valley. I had no thought then as to how we came there, where my friends were, nor for any other matter save my own present peril. For before I was well aware, and while yet too feeble to offer any resistance, too dazed to make any protest, I was flung down upon my face in the sand, and then, "Give me a hand here, you two," said Farrell, and the scouts turned and rose, and, one of them clutching me by the back of the neck and thrusting my face down into the sand, I felt a weight gradually crushing upon my back and legs. "That’s him!" said one, and then my neck was freed. The weight upon my buttocks and legs was nothing else than a great, flat slab of rock. I thought, though it had been lowered gently enough on me, that the heaviness of it would alone be sufficient to crush my bones. Certainly to move below the waist was quite out of the question. All this I suffered in a dumb, half-here, half-away fashion, my head hammering and my tongue parched in my mouth like a piece of dry wood. But when these four laughed brutally among themselves and began a series of remarks such as: "See and don’t give it an inch too short," or, "See that the string’s taut or we ’ll not get what we want," I came more to my senses and wondered what was to befall me. Then, for the first time, I was addressed directly by Farrell. "Well, kid," he said, "you ’re in a tight corner—you hear me? "I hear you," said I, speaking with difficulty, so dry was my throat. "Well," said he, "you can get out of this fix right off by telling us where the Lost Cabin Mine lies. And that’s business right off, with no delay." "I can never do that," said I, "for I don’t know myself." There was a chorus of unbelieving grunts and then: "All right," snapped the voice. "Fact is, we have n’t much inclination to loiter here. You ’ve taken a mighty while to come round, too, as it is—shove it in," he broke off. But the last words were not for me. One of the others stepped before me, his foot grazing my head, and I heard him say, "There?" "No," said another. "That’s over close—yes, there. That’s the spot." And then they all stepped back from me, and I, lying with my chin in the dust, saw what the man had been about; for directly before me was the point of the stick, thrust into the ground, with the snake noosed by the tail to it.