When he was forced to come up this time he turned on his back and floated with only his nose and eyes out of water.
“I’ll give ’em as small a target as possible,” he thought.
He was now so far out from the shore that he had little fear of being hit, even should they be able to locate him with the flash, and he very much doubted their ability to do this. By carefully bending his head he could see the slim pencil of light playing over the water, but not once did it reach him.
Feeling now fairly safe he began to swim slowly in a direction at right angles to the way he had pursued under water and which he judged was toward the camp. He was careful to make no noise which might reach the ears of his enemies on the shore. Glancing back from time to time he could still see the beam of light as they tried to locate him. But soon it vanished and keeping perfectly still he heard them crashing through the underbrush as they made their way back from the lake.
“Guess they’ve given it up as a bad job,” he chuckled as he started to swim more rapidly now.
He swam for what seemed a long time hoping that he was keeping to the right direction as he had nothing to guide him. Finally just as he was beginning to feel tired his feet touched bottom and in another minute he was sitting on a rock close by the shore.
“It can’t be very long before it begins to get light now,” he thought.
He had decided that it would be best to wait there until it was light enough to see before trying to find his way back to the camp. He had lost all sense of direction and knew that the chances were that he would take the wrong way should he start in the darkness. And there was always the chance that he might blunder into the hands of his recent captors.
Fortunately it was a warm night and although he was not very comfortable sitting there in his wet clothes, still he minded it but little.
“It’s a good deal better than being in their power,” he told himself.