“This is no joking matter,” Dick reproved him. “Sandy, I’ve left my watch at home. Have you got yours?”
“Yes,” answered Sandy, feeling in his pocket.
“Better hold it in your hand until the time comes for us to slip away from here.”
Sandy followed out the suggestion with alacrity. Silence fell over the little party, a silence so deep that Dick could have sworn that he could hear the faint ticking of his chum’s watch. An interminable period seemed to have passed before Sandy raised his arm.
“Time to go!” he whispered eagerly.
CHAPTER VIII
THE AMBUSCADE
Toma led the way to the coulee where the ponies were picketed. On the road thither they had met no one, and were in consequence in high spirits as they pushed forward through the trees, entered the draw, and came finally to the screen of thicket beyond which the horses munched contentedly on the dry grass covering the space around them.
Dick noted with deep concern that the wind had veered round more to the north and that the weather had become appreciably cooler. As yet there was no hint of a storm. Scarcely a cloud could be seen across the blue expanse of sky.
Sandy drew his coat more tightly about him and sat down in the shelter of a small thicket, while Dick and Toma began a restless pacing back and forth in the cleared space near the ponies. They were thus occupied when the sound of clattering hoofs heralded the approach of Constable Pearly.
A moment later he drew up in front of them, smiling down cheerily.