In vain did Michel Ardan and he rush across the plain still wet with dew, jump the creeks, take the shortest cuts; they could not reach Skersnaw Wood before half-past five. Barbicane must have entered it half-an-hour before.
There an old bushman was tying up faggots his axe had cut.
Maston ran to him crying—
"Have you seen a man enter the wood armed with a rifle? Barbicane, the president—my best friend?"
The worthy secretary of the Gun Club thought naïvely that all the world must know his president. But the bushman did not seem to understand.
"A sportsman," then said Ardan.
"A sportsman? Yes," answered the bushman.
"Is it long since?"
"About an hour ago."
"Too late!" exclaimed Maston.