"Dunno; hard to tell. But we've come a right smart ways, Paul, and so far as I kin see we're gettin' further and further into these big woods."

"But we've never lost old Murky's trail. Have we, now?"

"Nope! Dark as it is, I kin make it out. You know when we started out we noticed that one of his shoes or boots had a p.r.o.ng on one side of the heel. Well, here she is--see?"

And Chip Slider pointed to a deep impression made apparently by a big shoe-nail or some other peculiarity which the lads had noted earlier when the light was better. Paul grunted a tired a.s.sent.

"Where do you reckon we are, anyhow?"

Chip was staring at a high bulge ahead as if some huge rock or boulder protruded upward from the nearly level ground.

"I dunno. There's something ahead that looks like we might find a shelter.

Come on, Paul."

The two plodded on, one carrying the lone blanket and the other the small store of eatables that remained after their last inroad upon it. When they were nearly up to this unusual obstruction there came a sparkle of light that hit the damp air momentarily, then went out. It seemed to Chip, who had the keenest eyes of the two, as if it might have been the flare of a match.

The boys halted at once and stood staring, listening, perplexed and yet most curious. Finally they heard a snapping of twigs, and then came another flare and still another. Nothing else could they see for, as Chip suspected, it was only the reflection of a light that they had seen.

Evidently there must be someone behind that bulge. While they waited breathless, there came a confirmation of their fears--or rather was it their hopes?

"Blame me!" growled a heavy voice. "Why in sin won't she get afire?"

With one accord the two boys stood and stared--at each other. Finally Paul leaned forward, whispering:

"Murky, Murky!"

Chip more composedly nodded; then he too whispered:

"We must slip up behind that thing. It's a rock, I reckon."

Paul said nothing but when Chip started, he did likewise.

"Step keerful," whispered Slider. "Don't let your feet make a noise when you pull 'em out of the mud."

A low rumble of thunder muttered its way out of the west indicating more rain. As if to emphasize the menace of this, they heard Murky cursing to himself. He, too, was aware that further rain and storm boded no good to himself.

More softly still the boys came gradually up under the shelving sides of a great rock, that proved to be the termination of a chain of similar rocks which ab.u.t.ted from a ridge of low hills off to the northeast.

Beyond, on the other side of this last big boulder, they could still hear Murky--if it was Murky--renewing his attempts to make a fire. Under the shelving sides the boys had some shelter. But from the brighter glare on the other side they knew that the tramp had succeeded in starting his fire. Was he any better protected from the increasing rain than they?

For quite a time the two crouched, blanket over their shoulders, while the rain pattered harder and harder. Finally a slight shift of wind to the westward caused the rain to beat in on them more. They were very uncomfortable, squatting in the wet mould with their backs against the damp rocks.

"See what I got?" Paul held up something that Chip cautiously felt.

"Where did you get that?" Chip was astonished.

"I knew we had one at the camp. But I thought it was lost. But today I found it in one of our bags. When we started I managed to slip it into my pocket. We're only two boys, and Murky is a grown man. Why, you've got bruises on you now that he gave you--" Paul was showing a pistol.

"Hs-sh!" whispered Chip. "Not so loud. Lemme see that gun!"

"All right," and Paul pa.s.sed it over. Chip looked at it closely. "I can't tell yet if the chambers have any cartridges. We might need it."

By the mere feel of the thing they did not make sure, so Paul, before Chip had time to remonstrate, struck one of his own matches. By this light the two bent closely, the light flaring out into the night air. At last, as the match went out Chip declared:

"The chambers are all empty except one, and I can't see--hold on!"

Forgetting his previous caution, Chip himself struck another match.

While they bent again to see if the cartridge was a full one they were appalled when a deep, rough voice from out the apparent wall of rock behind struck on their boyish ears like a knell of coming destruction.

They turned, Paul grasping the dubious pistol, while Murky, still wet, covered with mud and doubly forbidding by reason of this, seized Chip Slider in one hand and reached for Paul with the other.

Where had Murky come from? How did he suddenly appear apparently out of what the boys supposed to be a solid wall of rock? But at any rate there he was with Chip squirming in his grasp while Paul, darting to one side, barely eluded his left-handed clutch. Altogether it was a ticklish situation.

But Paul was plucky. In a trice, remembering the one cartridge, he levelled the pistol and began pulling the trigger.

"Let go that boy!" his almost childish treble rang out. "Leggo, I say!"

Click--click--click went the hammer as he pulled the trigger, at the same time jumping back further from Murky's gripping hand. Meantime Chip managed to loose himself. Murky, hearing the empty sound of the striking hammer, growled:

"Huh-h! She's empty, blame ye--"

Just then--crack! came the sound of the full cartridge; but Paul's aim being unsteady, the ball just clipped Murky's left ear.

It maddened him more than anything else. With a yell of rage and pain he sprang at Paul, catching the lad as the latter tried to spring backward, but stumbling in the mud, while the pistol flew from his hand. By this time the light of Murky's fire was blotted out by some pa.s.sing object that darted swiftly out of the obscurity whence Murky had sprung. At the same time Chip, now free, leaped pluckily to the a.s.sistance of his friend.

But on the instant the unknown object, emitting a Swedish howl of rage, burst through, striking Murky with an impact that sent him headlong out into the night. With this collision back came the light that had been momentarily blotted from view by the last welcome intruder.

When this last stood revealed, big, heavy, yet strangely hampered by his half useless arms, the two boys were in turn again astonished yet gratified to behold--Nels Anderson. Accompanying this appearance came the sounds of rapidly retreating steps as Murky, recognizing defeat, made himself scarce as fast as he could. The three looked at each other, grinning the while as they looked.

"Say, Mr. Anderson," began Paul, "it was bully of you to come, and you still crippled in your arms!"

At a glance both saw that Nels, while active as ever in body and legs, held his arms loosely, both hanging down at his sides.

"My arms no good," he began, "but I bane all right yet. Coom--ve look fer dot feller."

He turned, diving through a side pa.s.sage hitherto hidden from Paul and Chip, while they, following, emerged into a recess where two gigantic boulders, leaning together, made the shelter under which Murky had started the fire that, flaring out into the darkness, had so puzzled the boys before. Here Murky, becoming aware that someone was beyond him, had crept up between rocks, listening when the boys arrived, and had sprung upon them as has been described.

For half a minute Nels stood, glaring at the embers of the fire and around to see what else might be there. But there was nothing, apparently, beyond a few sc.r.a.ps of eatables and a remnant of wet tow sacking.

"Coom on!" shouted the big Swede. "We bane get nothin' here!" And he darted off in the darkness towards where Murky's retreating steps had last been heard. But nothing resulted except a trio of tired searchers with deep mud on their legs and a sense that Murky had eluded them again.

"I don't see any signs of money round here," gloomily owned Paul, looking about the rocky recess where Murky had been quartered but a short while before. "It is dark as pitch everywhere else. One thing, Chip. I fancy we got his grub, whatever he had left after eating."

"That's something," owned up Chip. "A feller can't git along much in these woods unless he has something to fill his belly with."

Anderson, paying little heed to this, was staring into the fire, doubtless thinking matters over. Chip picked up the tow-bagging, scanned it closely and turned to Paul standing near. He pointed at a shred of the bagging that, without being detached from the sack, had somehow caught a small patch of greenish paper inside its loose clutch. Carefully Chip picked out this, and handed it to Nels and Paul.

"That looks like a piece of money," quoth Chip. "Ain't it the corner of a bill of some kind?"