"Watch out that he doesn't go by us and get lost," warned the Professor.
"You all keep quiet," directed Butler. "I'm going to have some fun with Stacy. Maybe it will teach him to be more watchful. Chunky would go to sleep even if he knew a band of Indians were creeping up on his camp."
The outfit swerved to the right as suggested by Butler, and soon was well screened by rocks and foliage. It was some little time after that before Chunky topped the rise.
"Hoo-oo-oo-oo!" he called in a long-drawn shout. "Hoo-oo-oo-oo!"
Not a sound greeted his call. Chunky fired his revolver into the air. Instead of stopping to look about more carefully, and evidently not suspecting another trick, Stacy dashed down the incline at a perilous pace, leaping small obstructions in order to take a shorter course to the point where he thought his party had entered the thicket.
Stacy had not penetrated into this very far before he pulled up and sat pondering deeply. Even yet he did not think far enough to realize that the boys would not desert him in this way.
Riding slowly into a thinly wooded space the boy fired the remaining chambers of his revolver, listening intently, then, with a grunt, recharged the weapon and got down from his pony.
"I'll stay here all the rest of the day. If they want me they can come back after me, that's all. If they don't, why I'll just go back to Hunt's Corners. I can get something to eat there. Yes, and the fellows will think something's happened to me and they'll be in an awful stew. I'll pay 'em back for this trick, I will. I guess they can't get so funny with me without getting the worst of it in the end."
Tad Butler, in the meantime, had left his pony and run towards the place where Chunky had entered the rugged, wooded stretch. Tad finally got near enough to be able to overhear the fat boy's angry mutterings. In fact, Butler was near enough to have roped Stacy. He thought of doing so, at one time, but decided that it would give Chunky too much of a fright. Then again, the fat boy might send a bullet Tad's way in case he were to make a miss with the rope. Tad, having stalked his prey as silently as a panther, had not even disturbed Stacy's pony. But now Butler observed that the animal was pricking up its ears, tossing its head as if it had scented something.
"Hang that pony. Has he discovered me?" thought Tad.