"I know where he is.

It's the Colonel I'm after.

Neither he nor Cat-Eye Mose have come back, and I'm afraid they're lost in the cave." The men laughed at this.

People didn't get lost in the cave, they said.
All anyone had to do was to follow the path; and besides, if the Colonel was with Mose he couldn't get lost if he tried.

Mose knew the cave so well that he could find his way around it in the dark.