Thus they passed out, stopping at the door to listen once more, while Dolph urged them to lose no further time.
Meanwhile Red had been duly busy. Every minute the sound of his voice, filled with wild entreaty, came on the breeze.
"Help! oh! won't somebody come and help me! This way! Oh! what a terrible fix I'm in! Help! help!" he would shout in the most dismal tone imaginable.
Of course Red was so situated that he could see the door of the cabin from a distance. Thus he would know when anyone sallied forth to try and rescue the one supposed to be in a peck of trouble. And once that occurred, the crafty "fox" was due to exercise his wonderful ingenuity by slipping away, and later on lifting up his wail for assistance in a new quarter.
Thus he would coax the two tramps hither and thither, arousing their hopes only to dash them to the ground by a new appeal from another section. In the end, of course, such fellows would begin to believe they were being hoodwinked—that there must be something uncanny about the mysterious calls, and they would be seized with a small panic that must wind up the hunting game.
But meanwhile ten, perhaps fifteen, minutes might have elapsed; and surely that space of time would be enough for Elmer and his fellow scouts to accomplish the end they had in view.
The young scout leader always did his work with more or less system. He had decided that they ought to let at least three minutes elapse after the departure of the men, before attempting any move. This would take them far enough away from the bunk-house so that any ordinary outcry from within would hardly reach their ears. Having no other way of determining upon the passage of time, Elmer began to count under his breath as soon as the bulky figure of Pete had vanished from the open door of the building.
Three minutes does not seem a long time under ordinary conditions; indeed, in many instances it just slips past like magic. And yet try counting the seconds contained within that short space of time—one hundred and eighty of them, all told—why, it seems enormous. But steadily Elmer was putting them over, determined not to change his plans, and give way to his natural impatience, since he had in the beginning figured on that three-minute leeway.
He could feel the uneasy movements of his impatient chums. Lil Artha even went so far as to nudge him in the ribs, as though he had begun to suspect that their cautious leader might have gone to sleep. But Elmer gave back an answering dig that convinced the other of his being on the alert.
When he had finally reached the end of the probation, Elmer himself began to make a forward movement. All the while he counted those passing seconds he had been closely watching the figure of Dolph, so as to be ready for action. That was the motto of the scouts, "Be prepared," and he certainly believed in living up to it.