“Sneak up on us,” he finished.
Batten and Bill pushed their boat off and rowed down-stream. We watched them till they went out of sight around the bend.
“I bet they’re gone,” I said.
Mark only shook his head.
“I’m goin’ to see,” says I.
“Go ahead, but don’t let ’em catch you. Don’t go blunderin’ along. Be c-careful.”
“I’ll be careful,” says I; and with that I started off along the face of the hill in the direction Batten and Bill had taken.
CHAPTER XVIII
I scrambled along, edging up toward the top of the bank, and when I got there I started to run along on the level ground. I couldn’t run very fast on account of the underbrush and because every little ways the rain had washed out gullies that I had to go around or jump over. I followed the shore of the river, keeping my eyes peeled all the time for a sight of Batten and Bill. There were so many trees between me and the water that I couldn’t see far; but I could watch the shore-line, as I went along, to discover if they had landed. After I got around the bend I went more carefully, for I wasn’t a bit anxious to have them know I was spying on them. I kept behind the clumps of sumach and suchlike shrubs that grew all along the hillside, wherever it was possible; and when it wasn’t I went back a few yards from the top of the slope, where I couldn’t be seen by anybody standing at the water’s edge.
It seemed I must have caught up with the boat if they hadn’t rowed faster than a horse can gallop, so I crept up back of a clump of bushes and looked down. I couldn’t see a thing. Nobody was in sight, and the woods were as still and calm-like as could be. There are places along the shore that look as if folks had never been there, and this was one of them. Cat-tails and reeds grew out into the river from the bank, and hazel and sumach and elderberry bushes filled in thick between the big trees. It wasn’t a swampy place exactly, though it was pretty soft and squashy in the spring when the water was high, but it looked marshy.