“Whichever way we guess we may be dead wrong,” murmured Don.
“Yes, and we can’t afford to be wrong,” Ned answered. “Look here, we’ll have to split the party.”
“Split the party?” echoed the others.
“Yes. Don and I will go south, and Jim and Terry north and over the top. In that way we should be able to cover a lot of territory. I propose that we make this spot our meeting place, and that we all assemble here at seven o’clock tomorrow morning to compare notes. Let’s have a signal of three shots. That will mean to either come back to the meeting place, or ride toward the shots.”
“Better make it the signal to ride toward the shots,” advised Don. “We’ll repeat the shooting and keep it up until the other party joins us. But if one party picks up Professor Scott it had better ride back here with him and fire the shots from here, because we all know just where this place is and can find it easily.”
“That’s right,” agreed Ned. “Of course, we are splitting our party and lessening our strength.”
“I don’t see that we can help that,” Jim argued. “If we were looking for something that didn’t require every minute we could keep together and take our time. But there is no knowing what the outfit will do to the professor. Besides, two of us should be able to handle those fellows, even if there are three of them.”
“We should be able to depend on a surprise attack,” said Terry.
“Yes,” agreed Ned. “What is that?”
The others looked at him questioningly. Ned listened intently. “I thought I heard the sound of a bell tolling,” he said.