“Aw, we’ll hear him sleeping before we get within a rod of the cave,” laughed Jack. “Gilroy is a good old chap, and father thinks a lot of him, but he doesn’t know much about this kind of a life. I’ll bet that right now he’s dreaming about grizzly bears, and lions, and crocodiles, and panthers.”
From their position in the forest, after their departure from the rock, they could see nothing of the signal from the north which had attracted Jimmie’s attention, so there seemed nothing for them to do but to return to camp. Therefore they set out at good speed.
After a short walk, Jack beckoned the boys to his side and suggested that they take a route to the camp different from that which they had followed on leaving it.
“You see, boys,” he explained, “that was a signal, all right, and we haven’t found out the cause of it. So far as we know, it was put up to get us away from the camp.”
“I’m beginning to think it was,” Frank announced. “Either to get us away from the camp for the purpose of capturing us, or for the purpose of raiding our provisions.”
“Well,” Jack went on, “if we duck away to the south and return to the camp by a new course, anyone watching for us might watch in vain.”
“That’s the idea!” Harry answered.
“Then here we go the south,” Frank suggested, starting away at as swift a gait as was possible in the thicket.
They had proceeded but a short distance when every tree bole of good size immediately in front of them seemed to their astonished eyes to yield a scowling, dirty half-breed. The boys drew their guns.
“No use, lads!” a voice said, speaking in good English. “The men in the bushes have you covered. Anyway, there’s no harm intended.”