So Dave threw himself on the grass to rest until he bethought himself that, wet as they all were, it might be a good idea to build a fire for drying purposes.
He busied himself in that way, while Dick started slowly, very
painfully, down the road. Only a step at a time could he go.
Greg, returning, ran after him, but Prescott sent him back, so
Holmes stretched himself on the ground near the fire.
At times Dick found he could move about very easily. Then the hip would stiffen and he would be obliged to lean against a tree for a few moments.
For ten minutes or longer he moved thus down the road.
"I'd better be getting back soon, I guess," he mused, "or I may find it too much of a job."
Looking back, as he turned, he could just make out the glow of the fire, very dim, indeed, from where he stood.
"I've got a beacon," smiled Dick, as he rested against a tree trunk just off the road. He was about to take a step when a figure glided stealthily by.
"By all that's astonishing, it's Tag Mosher!" Prescott gasped. He clutched at the tree trunk again, watching, for Tag had halted and appeared to be peering hard through the foliage at the fire some distance away.
"I wouldn't want him to find me, now!" thought Dick, a cold chill running over him at the thought of Tag's desperate savagery.
But at that moment Prescott accidentally made a sound, which, slight though it was, caught young Mosher's ear.