“See that low-hanging limb, and the bushes just beyond?” asked young Prescott.

“Of course,” assented Dave.

“We’ll go on about a minute further,” suggested Dick, who had kept his watch in hand from the outset.  “Then we’ll walk backward, stop here, grab that limb and swing ourselves over past the bushes.  That ought to throw the fellows off the track and get ’em all mixed up.”

“If the whites are spread enough they’ll probably be outside those bushes,” remarked Reade.  “Then they’ll find where the trail changes.”

“That’s one of the chances that we have to take,” smiled Dick.  “Let’s see if we can’t make it work.”

Onward again they went, halting when Prescott gave the word.  Walking backward, they were soon at the oak with the low-hanging limb.

“I’ll try it first,” proposed Dick, “and see if it’s easy enough.  Don’t walk around here and make enough tracks to call the attention of the whites to the fact that we stopped here.”

Dick made a bound, catching the limb fairly.  Three or four times he swung himself back and forth, until he had gained enough momentum.  Then he let go, on the last swing, landing on his feet well behind the bushes.  Dave came next, Tom following.  Now the three Indians hurried on again, Big Injun Dick in the lead as before.

“If we do throw them off, Greg’s fighting men will have a hard job hitting the trail again,” chuckled Tom.

“If they don’t find our trail, Dick, where are you headed for?” whispered Dave.

“For the road and home,” laughed Dick.  “Then, while they’re trying to figure out where we’ve gone, we fellows will be washing up for supper.”

“I’d like to hear Old Greg grumbling if the ‘double’ does throw ’em off the trail altogether,” grinned Darrin.  “Dick, I think we’ve more than half a chance to get away.”

“We have about four chances out of five of slipping away from Greg’s soldiers,” predicted Prescott.

For ten minutes Dick and his two braves plodded on.  There were, as yet, no audible sounds of pursuit.

“We caught ’em, surely enough, that time,” chuckled Tom.  “Going to hit for the road now, Dick?”

“We can’t reach the road until our hour is up; we’re bound to keep to the woods,” Prescott replied.  “However, you’ll note that I am taking a course that will gradually lead us to the road.”

“Right-o,” nodded Reade, after taking a look at their surroundings.  All the members of Dick & Co. had spent so much of their time in the woods that they knew every foot of the way.

“I wonder where that valiant band of whites is, anyway?” muttered Dave.  “I haven’t heard a sound of them.”

“You may hear their battle yell any minute,” Dick whispered.  “Be careful not to talk loudly enough to give them any clue.”

For two or three minutes more Dick led the way.  Of a sudden he halted—–­right up against a huge surprise.  For the boys had suddenly broken into a little circular clearing, not much more than thirty feet in diameter.  Near the center of this clearing, under a flimsy shelter he had made of poles and branches, crouched Amos Garwood.  He was at work over a low bench built of a board across two boxes.  So intent was Garwood on what he was doing that he appeared not to have heard the approach of the boys.