“We make um grub cache tomorrow,” Toma encouraged them. “Get um plenty grub there.”
Late that afternoon, without mishap they reached a point where Toma said they must abandon their canoe and go on by land, since the river swung off in another direction. They carefully hid their canoe in some underbrush along with two others left by a party that had recently gone on ahead of them, and started out on foot.
Dick and Sandy were very tired long before Toma showed signs of slowing up, but they gamely stuck to the pace without complaint.
They were angling down the side of a long ravine, toward a spring, which Toma muttered would be a good place to camp, when of a sudden, the guide stopped dead.
“Hide quick!” Toma whispered, with a significant gesture of one sinewy brown hand.
Dick and Sandy crouched.
“Think um bad fellas ahead,” Toma explained. “You stay here. I go ahead; look um over.”
Dick and Sandy were glad to sink down and rest their weary legs. But the warning in Toma’s voice did not escape them. They were keyed to sharp watchfulness as Toma dropped to his hands and knees and disappeared silently among the bushes.
CHAPTER VII
THE RIFLED CACHE
Dick and Sandy had crouched in hiding for upwards of a half hour before Toma returned. He came as he had gone, silently, like a ghost almost, so stealthy were his movements, so clever his woodcraft.