“Aw, what’s ther use, ther kid is a mile off by this time, worse luck.”
“Hush, don’t talk so loud,” came another voice. “You don’t know who may be about.”
“Well, we’d better be getting that car out of the mud and making ourselves scarce,” came in the tones which Roy was certain were those of Gid Gibbons. “If there’s a hue and cry raised about this and they find that car stranded here they can easy trace us.”
“That’s so,” was the response in the voice of Jukes Dade. “Come on, boys, we’ll get her out of this confounded slough if we can, and get back to town.”
The voices died away as they retreated, splashing like water animals through the mud and ooze.
As silence fell once more Roy straightened up from his unpleasant situation and looked about him. The night was starry, and above his head he could see The Dipper. He knew that the outside stars of this constellation pointed to the North Star and he soon had the latter located. This gave him the points of the compass, and figuring that Acatonick must lie to the east of his present position, he struck out in that direction as nearly as he could.
He had no idea of the time, to his great chagrin, for in his haste to obey the forged summons to the flying track he had forgotten to bring his watch. In fact, in his hurry, he had slipped into an old coat, the pockets of which contained nothing more useful to him than a packet of chewing gum. He slipped a wad of this into his mouth to “keep him company” as he expressed it to himself, and grittily went forward.
The wood ended presently, and he found himself in a field with woods on all three sides, except that on which the swamp impinged. Little as he liked the idea of plunging into pathless woods, with nothing to guide him but the stars, as he glimpsed them through the trees, there was no help for it. Go on he must. Crossing the field rapidly he soon reached the border of the tangle and entered its black shadows. Keeping as straight a line as he could he hastened forward, and to his great delight, soon saw that the trees were beginning to thin out, and that beyond lay, apparently, open country.
“Hooray, I’m bound to strike a road before long now,” thought Roy gleefully and quickened his pace.
He had not gone more than a few paces, however, when through the trees he heard a strange sound. It was a clinking sound like the rattling of a chain.