Meanwhile, David ran willingly to fetch and saddle Sally and to carry out many other orders. Mrs. Sterling, with a dazed look on her face, came running out with a bulging haversack and insisted upon David and Uncle Micah eating something at once. Then Humphrey appeared looking very harassed and all hung about with strange implements like a Christmas tree, and Sally was loaded with as much as she could carry. David ran back to H.Q.2 for a few oddments, and could not help wishing Tom was with them, and then Aunt Carol was waving at the gate and wishing them "Good luck."

"Good fires and plenty of hot water ready - and soup," were Uncle Micah's final and surprising instructions.

Jenny had done her job well, for just as the main party reached the lane at the foot of the wood, she came toiling up the hill on a bicycle, while behind her - fifty yards behind - pedalled a red and fat policeman with a large satchel on his back. Uncle Micah waited for the constable, and, with David leading Sally in front, the party climbed the Dingle after Jenny and the policeman had left their bicycles by the signpost.

"We ought to see Peter soon," David said. "Look out for her, Jenny. She may have found them after all."

But there was no sign of her, and they did not think to look up to the ridge on their right, where Peter at this moment had just met Tom. Soon the search party turned left and were hidden in the trees. When they had passed the ruined cottages and come into the open again, David waited for Uncle Micah.

"This is the way we came this morning," he said. "And just past this hawthorn - I remember it - is where we saw Mackie coming out from the rocks... There!... There's no entrance as you see! And no rocking stone, either."

And it was just at that moment when Uncle Micah had stopped and nodded confirmation to the policeman that they first heard the noise of the cable car and looked up to see it rushing towards them.

"I was right, then," was David's first thought. "It does work."

"It hasn't run for years," Uncle Micah gasped.

"There's summun in it," the policeman shouted, and summun on t'back."

And then it screamed over their heads and rushed into the black hole in the face of the cliff. Sally, badly frightened, nearly broke away from David, who was shouting, "It was Tom on the back, Tom Ingles. I know it was," as the others stared at him in astonishment.

Uncle Micah stepped forward, put a strong hand on the pony's bridle and quietened her. Then he turned to David.

"There is something strange here. You say you know that lad riding on the back of the car?"

"Yes; it's Tom. Our friend. But where does the car go? Will he be hurt? Can the car come back?"