All were now on hand, Landy panting in a way that made Lil Artha dig his elbow into his ribs as a warning that he was making altogether too much noise.
"Why don't Red start his bazoo?" whispered that long-legged worthy in Elmer's ear, as he lay flattened out on the ground in the gloomy far-end part of the loggers' bunk-house.
"Never fear, you can count on Red to do his part," was what the scout master managed to convey in the same sort of careful whisper; and fearful lest Arthur, who was known to be rather talkative, get fairly started, when it was most unwise to indulge in any conversation with those enemies so close by, Elmer gave a gentle "'sh!" to signify that silence just then was golden.
The impatient ones were counting the seconds, and wondering how they could ever hold out much longer. Elmer kept watching the three men, knowing that through their actions at least he could readily tell when the expected break had come.
Ruth still had her face hidden in her dress, and was doubtless filled with grief because of this cruel enforced separation from her own mother.
And as he thus waited, his heart beating faster than its wont, Elmer caught a faint cry. It came from some distance off, and seemed to be filled with the utmost distress.
"Help! oh! help!"
The time limit having expired, that was Red getting in his work as the crafty fox attempting to coax the hounds on a false scent.
The three men had started up. They were looking at each other, as though hardly knowing what to make of it. To hear a call for assistance in this lonely vicinity was certainly enough to bewilder, yes, and perhaps to alarm anyone; especially men whose past had been so very shady that they suspected everything which they could not fully understand.