The search took longer than they expected.
To all calls the thick grove gave back only echoes.
Dick, rounding a tree, stumbled.
“Larry—Sandy—come—quick!” He called his chums in a strained voice.
When they reached him, in the dying glow of the flashlight Dick trained on a body lying in a heap, they identified the man who had been warned by his gypsy fortune teller to “look out for a hidden enemy.” He was lying at full length in the mould and leaves.
“Jeff!” Dick knelt and lifted the man’s head.
“Huh!—uh—oh!”
Slowly, while they held their breath, understanding came into the dazed eyes, the breath was drawn in, and Jeff struggled to a half-reclining posture.
“What happened to you?” begged Sandy.
“The rest—oh, I’m sick!—I got a bang in the solar plexus—I sent the rest of the men out to the edge of—the woods—oh!—my stomach—to beat in towards me—when I come around this-here tree, somebody was waiting and poked me—oh!”—