This time the sound was even nearer.

“We can’t go back deeper into the woods,” Tim argued breathlessly.  “Your ankle won’t stand it.  We’ve got to get out.  We can’t go to our right—­there’s the ravine and the underbrush.  If we keep going ahead they’ll overtake us.  If we try to get off to the left, we’re sure to cross them on an angle.”

“Never mind me,” Don urged.  “Make a dash for it.”

Tim shook his head stubbornly.  “Wouldn’t it be fine for a scout to leave his patrol leader in the lurch?  Maybe we’ll think of something.  Come on; no use of standing here.”

They wormed their way forward.  They began to meet patches of thick brush.  All at once Tim gave a suppressed cry.

“Look at that brush, Don.  If we can get them off on a false scent—­Where are they?”

The sound was still off to the left.

“Give me your haversack.”  Tim shed his own.  “Now your canteen.  Now over there.  Lie behind that brush.  Quick.”

Don hobbled over to the dense growth.  Watching, he saw Tim go off a short distance and drop a haversack; going on, he dropped a canteen and disappeared.

Don expected him to come back the way he had gone.  Instead, Tim made a wide swing and approached the brush from the rear.  He stretched off on his stomach alongside the patrol leader.

“I laid the canteens and the haversacks in a row,” he whispered, “about a hundred feet apart toward the ravine.  They’ll think we went that way in a hurry and dropped our things so as to travel light.  It will take them time to search that underbrush.  As soon as they pass we’ll go off to the left.  Every minute we’ll be getting farther away from them.”

“Why won’t they think we dropped the haversacks while heading the other way?” Don asked.

“What, toward them?” Tim grinned.  “That would have walked us right into their arms.”

Don thought it out.  Through a peephole in the brush he could see the first haversack on the ground.

“Suppose they find it out there, Tim, and don’t see the canteen?”

“Well, what of it?”

“Suppose they start to search right around here?”

“Gee!” Tim gave a low whistle.  “I hadn’t thought of that.  How’s this:  if we see them coming, jump up and surprise them and yell ‘Capture!’”

“Suppose they yell, too?” Don asked.  “Mr. Wall may say that two sound scouts would have a better chance to capture than a team with one limping scout.”

That was reasonable.  The situation became tense.  If the searchers took the false trail and went on, all right.  If they started to search—­good night!

They lay behind the brush and waited.  It seemed, after a while, that they had been there an hour.  Don had just begun to believe that the pursuit had gone off in a new direction, when Tim’s hand grasped his shoulder with a convulsive pressure.

There had been a faint sound of cracking wood.