dismay Fred hardly knew how he managed to get
himself and the Happy Thought under cover before the pursuing horsemen
swept by at a slashing gallop. There were four of them in all, heavily
armed, and with their faces half concealed by clumsy masks. Fred
recognized "Smooth Jim" in the leader of the party, and the sight was
not reassuring, even though he was now looking at that gentleman's back.
Half mechanically he got out his repair kit, and began to patch the
leaking tire. "Where was Jack?" was the question that seemed to dance in
letters of fire before his eyes. Could he be lying back there in the
road with a bullet in his head? Was he a prisoner?

But wait a moment. If Jack was in their hands, why had _he_ been chased?
The money was in the bag strapped to Jack's back, and the money was what
they were after. But wait again. Was he sure that the horsemen were
pursuing him? Might they not have been making their own escape, having
secured their booty? In that case Jack had been left behind, wounded or
dead. There was but one thing to do, and that was to steal cautiously
back and find out.

It had taken Fred some ten minutes to mend the tire and come to this
conclusion. At the point where he had made his way into the thicket a
small brook, locally called a "branch," crossed the road, and he had
been sitting on its bank. As he rose to his feet he happened to glance
upstream. There was something floating down with the current. Only a
piece of bark. But stop! The little craft carried a miniature mast made
from a hazel twig, and in the cleft at its top there was something
white--a bit of folded paper.

A signal! A message! Fred watched it eagerly as it came nearer. Twice it
grounded against an overhanging branch, but the current swung it clear
again. A moment more, and it was in his grasp. A note, and in Jack's
handwriting. Fred tore it open.

"Make no noise. Don't go out on road. There is a scout on each
side of you. I am a hundred yards upstream with a sprained ankle.
Can you get the H. T. up here without noise? Have a plan.

"JACK."

A few minutes later and Jack was telling his story. He had been pitched
off his seat by a sudden lurch just as the Happy Thought began her
headlong rush down the hill, but had alighted unhurt in a clump of
laurel. Seeing that Fred had safely run the gauntlet, he had made his
way into the scrub and worked cautiously down the hill, keeping parallel
with the road. On comin