“I swan, I forgot all about it. I haven’t been thinking about much of anything lately except that dratted postoffice business. Then when I did think of it, you were out of sight. Have they heard anything about the girl?”
“Guess they’re working on something now.” Garry refrained from answering any questions, for there were three or four other men in the store, and he was now proceeding on the idea that every man was a potential enemy until he was proven otherwise.
Garry packed his knapsack carefully, and as a last thought bought a couple of yards of white cloth with which to make the trail marks he had promised to leave.
He took the trail they had taken the day they set out to discover the mine after they had succeeded in getting the missing portion of the torn map.
It was a good twenty mile hike to the town, and Garry put his best foot forward, for he wanted to reach the town before dark. He decided he would put up there for the night in the village hotel, if there was one, rather than stay in the woods.
Garry did not think it wise to sleep out in the forest where some misfortune might befall him, at a time when he needed all his strength, and above all, his liberty. Then, too, he wanted a good night’s sleep to be fresh for the coming day, which he fancied would be a hard one.
As he walked, he kept a keen lookout for any signs of trail,—a dropped handkerchief, or something of the sort. Garry hoped that Ruth would find some way of dropping something that might serve as a clue, for she was a bright girl, and knew that any little help would aid those whom she knew would seek to trail her as soon as her absence was discovered.
His pains were unrewarded, however, as he walked mile after mile. Garry was straining every nerve to make time, and took a pace that was much faster than the boys generally used when on plain patrol duty. Their summer in the woods had made good walkers of all of them, and they were able to make decent distances without more than ordinary fatigue.
It had been noon time when Garry left Hobart, and allowing himself until seven o’clock to get to the village of Chester, it would mean that he must make a trifle less than four miles every hour, counting out a few minutes for a breathing spell after every fifty or fifty-five minutes of walking.
His reckoning was not far wrong, for it was only about a quarter after seven when he pulled into Chester. He asked a pedestrian if there was any sort of a hotel or boarding house in the village, and was directed to one a short ways down the street. Garry was ravenously hungry, so he had his supper at the hotel, getting in just before the dining room closed. It was a typical country hotel, and the fare was good. After he had eaten, he sought out the owner and engaged him in conversation.