Bob waited but an instant to learn the result of his blow. He heard the men go down and then turned and made his way as rapidly as he dared through the forest. He had gone perhaps a hundred feet when he tripped on a root and plunged headlong on his face. Fortunately, however, the ground was not hard and he was not hurt. As he scrambled to his feet he heard a great crashing in the underbrush behind him.
“Guess I didn’t knock him out after all,” he thought as he started off again.
His heart sank as he realized that, with the aid of the flashlight, they would be able to make faster time than he dared attempt so rough was the going. Indeed he had not gone more than a couple of hundred feet farther before he knew that they were but a very short distance behind him and he realized that it was a matter of but a few minutes before they would be upon him.
Should he submit to capture a second time or should he make a fight for it? He thought of climbing a tree but dismissed the thought as he knew that such a move would at best only delay his capture.
“You better stop queek or we keel you,” Big Pierre panted now only a few feet behind him.
“I won’t give up till I have to,” he thought as he scrambled up on to a large rock which he had ran into.
Having gained the top of the rock at the expense of a severe bruise on his right shin he started to go down the other side when suddenly his feet flew from beneath him and he felt himself falling. Down, down he went until, just as the thought flashed through his mind that it was taking him an awful while to reach the bottom, he struck water.
The fall was all of thirty feet and he was carried far beneath the surface. Fortunately he struck feet first and so was not at all hurt. He felt very thankful that he had struck the lake instead of the hard ground and that the water was deep.
As soon as he could he began to swim for the surface and in another moment his head emerged. Shaking the water from his eyes he saw a beam of light fall on the water only a few feet away. Doubtless the men had heard the splash as he struck the water and had thus been warned in time to avoid following him into the lake. Drawing in a long breath. Bob sank again beneath the surface and swam out into the lake. He kept beneath the water as long as he could hold his breath and then cautiously allowed his head to emerge. Almost at once a beam of light struck full in his eyes and the vicious bark of a revolver, followed by a slight splash only a few inches from his head, caused him to dive once more.
“That was a little too close for comfort,” he thought as he started to swim.