That sharp, yet low, sound came to his ears before he had been engaged ten minutes in exploring the dark forest.
Halstead halted instantly, gooseflesh beginning to come out over him, for his first thought was that he was nearing one of the dreaded rattlesnakes.
“Oh, pshaw!” he muttered to himself, after a moment. “Rattlers don’t hiss; they rattle. It must be I imagined that sound.”
Once more he started forward.
“Hss-sst!”
Again the youthful skipper stopped dead short, this time feeling less startled, though he became, if possible, more alert.
“That isn’t a ghostly noise, either, even if there were such a thing as a ghost,” the boy muttered inwardly. “I must be getting close to the makers of the noises. Confound this darkness!”
Tom stood quite still, peering in the direction from which he fancied the slight noise had come.
Suddenly Tom Halstead felt himself seized from behind. There was no time to cry out ere he pitched violently forward on his face, which was instantly buried in the soft grass of a bog. At least two men were a-top of him. Barely had he struck the ground when the young skipper felt the hunting rifle torn from his grasp.
Powerful hands gripped at his throat, the while his hands were yanked behind him and bound. Then he was rolled over onto his back. The grip about his throat was continued until his mouth had been forced open and filled with a big handful of the hanging moss that grows so picturesquely on Florida trees. This was swiftly and deftly made fast in place by a cord forced between his teeth and passed around his head.