It was not an order that could be obeyed very quickly, owing to the lack of facilities in their stable.
The horses were quietly eating their breakfast; the harness was hanging on a tree some distance away, and the carriage had been pulled into the woods so far that it would require at least ten minutes before it could be gotten on to the road.
Bob began to harness one horse, while Ralph attended to the other, and while they were thus employed, George came out of the woods in a very excited condition.
"We have been camping within five rods of the thieves!" he cried. "The noise we heard was probably made by the horses as they led them out into the road, and I got there just in time to see them drive away."
Haste surely made waste then, for all the party were so excited by what they had seen and heard, and so anxious to start in pursuit quickly, that they retarded their own progress by the bungling manner in which they went to work.
Ralph, in his eagerness, got the harness so mixed up that he was obliged to undo all he had done and begin all over again before he could accomplish anything, while Bob searched five minutes for the bridle, which, in the first excitement, he had flung some distance from him among the bushes.
So far as coolness and presence of mind was concerned, George was no better off than his companions. He attempted to pull the carriage into the road, and got it so fastened among the small trees that Ralph was obliged to come to his assistance, lifting it bodily out before it could be extricated.
In this confused way of doing things fully ten minutes of time was wasted, and the thieves had a start of nearly twenty minutes before their pursuers were ready for the chase.
It was useless for them now to reproach themselves with carelessness in not examining the woods when they first awoke, as they should have done, since they knew the thieves would spend the night in some such place, and quite as useless to complain, because they did not attempt to discover the cause of the noise when they first heard it. Had they done either one of these things, which it seemed the most inexperienced in this kind of work would have done, they would have discovered the team and had it then in their possession.
As it was, however, they could only try to atone for their carelessness by being more cautious in the future, which each mentally resolved to be as he clambered into the carriage as soon as the horses were harnessed. This time George sat on the front seat with Bob, where he could more readily leap from the wagon if necessary.