"Yes, we might as well go back to camp. We can't spend much time looking for him in the morning. We've got other work to do. I wish I knew just how much that fellow overheard. Queerest thing I ever come across, and I don't like it a little bit."
They removed the saddle and bridle from the dead pony, after which they started slowly away.
Tad breathed again. Yet he still lay along the pinon limb, every sense on the alert. He was not sure that it was not a trick to draw him out. He already was too good a woodsman to be caught napping thus easily.
After a time, however, deciding that all the men had left, the lad cautiously began to work his way down the sloping tree trunk. His feet touched the ground, his arms still being about the pinon trunk. In that position he lay for several minutes.
"I guess it's all right," decided Tad, straightening up. "The question is, which way shall I go? I've got to be a long ways from here by daylight or that will be the end of me. It would be just my luck to run right into that gang again."
After pondering a moment he decided that, knowing the direction the men had taken, there was only one thing for him to do. He would strike out in the opposite direction.
He did so at once, first standing in one spot for some time to get his bearings exactly. Then, the lad started away bravely. At first he moved cautiously and as he got further away, increased his speed and went on with less caution.
He kept bearing to the right to offset the natural tendency to stray too far the other way, which is usual with those who are lost in the forest.
Tad was tired and sore, but he did not allow himself to give any thought to that. His one thought now, was to get out of the forest and give the alarm to the owner of the ranch against whom he had heard the men plotting.
Hearing water running somewhere near, Tad realized that he was very thirsty, and after a few minutes' search, he located a small mountain stream. Making a cup of his hands he drank greedily, then took up his weary journey again. Forcing his way through dense patches of brush, stumbling into little gullies, becoming entangled amongst fallen trees and rotting brush heaps, boy and clothes suffered a sad beating.