"We must try to think up some way to fool the fellows," muttered
Reade.
"Halt!" warned Dick, when they were barely two minutes away from the starting point.
Darrin and Reade stopped in their tracks.
"See that low-hanging limb, and the bushes just beyond?" asked young Prescott.
"Of course," assented Dave.
"We'll go on about a minute further," suggested Dick, who had kept his watch in hand from the outset. "Then we'll walk backward, stop here, grab that limb and swing ourselves over past the bushes. That ought to throw the fellows off the track and get 'em all mixed up."
"If the whites are spread enough they'll probably be outside those bushes," remarked Reade. "Then they'll find where the trail changes."
"That's one of the chances that we have to take," smiled Dick.
"Let's see if we can't make it work."
Onward again they went, halting when Prescott gave the word. Walking backward, they were soon at the oak with the low-hanging limb.
"I'll try it first," proposed Dick, "and see if it's easy enough. Don't walk around here and make enough tracks to call the attention of the whites to the fact that we stopped here."