Just as Amos Garwood was on the point of vanishing from their view, the two schoolboys started forward, more cautiously than before.

Back of them in the woods, far away, sounded a boyish war-whoop.

“Hi-yi-yi-yi-yoop!” answered Dave Darrin.

Amos Garwood started forward with a bound like that of a deer.  Then his long legs went into rapid operation.  Prescott and Darrin ran onward as fast as they could go.  They were trained to running, too, but this “master of the world” set them a pace that no fourteen-year-old boys on earth could have followed with any hope of success.

“Whoop, but he’s an airship for speed!” gasped Dave Darrin.

“We couldn’t catch him with a locomotive,” confessed Dick, when, panting, he was at last obliged to halt.

“Hear him—–­going,” gasped Darrin.

“I can’t hear him,” confessed Dick, after a moment of listening.

“That’s just the point.  He has gotten so far away that we can’t hear him crashing through the undergrowth.”

“I’m afraid we won’t catch up with him again to-day,” sighed Dick.

“The folks who are trying to catch Amos Garwood are foolish in sending detectives to look for him,” muttered Dave.  “They ought to hire professional sprinters.”

Away at their rear sounded a fainter whoop.

“Answer the fellows, Dave,” urged Prescott.

“I will—–­when I get some wind,” muttered Darrin.

Three times more Greg and his fellows whooped before Dick could get together enough wind to make his voice travel.  Greg repeated the hail, and again Dick answered.  After a few minutes the other Grammar School boys caught up with Dick and his friend, who told to the new-comers the story of the encounter with Amos Garwood.

“Get away from you again?” asked Tom blankly.

“I don’t believe we’ll ever chase that streak of light again,” growled Dave.  “I don’t feel as though I’d ever be able to run again.  Amos Garwood can walk faster than any of us can run.”

“The most that we can do at present,” Prescott concluded, will be to notify Lawyer Ripley or Chief Coy that we’ve seen the Garwood flyer again.”

“I wish we could catch him,” sighed Torn, while Greg nodded.

“You two can have the next chance,” smiled Dick.  “As for me, I am certain that I can never catch Amos Garwood unless he and I happen to be running toward each other.”

“All in favor of supper,” proposed Dan Dalzell, glancing at his watch, “say ‘aye’ and turn homeward.”

“But shan’t we try, for a while, to trail Garwood?” queried Greg.

“What’s the use?” cross-questioned Dick disconsolately.  “We might sight him, but we’d never catch him.  Nor do I believe he has stopped running yet.”

“If he hasn’t,” grumbled Dave, “he’s twenty miles from here by this time.”

So Dan’s motion prevailed.  The baseball squad of the Central Grammar School turned toward the road that led homeward.