Before emerging, Nort looked carefully through the opening he had made. The moon gave good light, but, fortunately, the tent was in the shadow of some trees and the way of escape seemed clear.
"Come on!" whispered Nort to his brother. They paused a moment, listening to the heavy breathing of the opium-stupefied Greaser and then stepped out of the opening.
An instant later they stood beneath the starry canopy of the sky, having accomplished the first part of their escape from the camp of mystery.
CHAPTER XXII
BACK TO THE RANCH
Perhaps, after all, it was due to the peculiar natures of the two professors that Nort and Dick were enabled to make their escape as easily as the lads did. Primarily Professor Wright and Professor Blair were scientists, whatever else our heroes accused them of in their own minds. And though the men surrounding the mysterious prospectors might be scoundrels, in a sense, they did not have orders to be extra vigilant after Dick and Nort had been placed in the tent; so no general guard was kept over the camp.
Thus it was, that as soon as the lads stepped out of the cut tent, they found no one to oppose their progress. Too much dependence had been placed on the Greaser guard. Who would have supposed that Nort carried a bottle of paregoric?
Or, granting that it was known he had it, would you have imagined that he would use it as he did? The whole affair was so ridiculously simple that perhaps this offered a reason for its success.
For it did succeed.
Stepping softly over the rough ground back of the tent, the boys made their way some little distance from it before they hardly dared breathe freely. Then as they were aware of the silence of the night, wrapping everything in its somber robe, slashed here and there with insertions of gleaming moonbeams, their hearts beat higher with hope.