r the outer air gasping for breath.

"Hi! stop!" roared Matt Gilroy, catching sight of him at last. "Stop, I
tell you!"

"A boy!" ejaculated Nat Potts. "He must have been hiding in here!"

"If he was he overheard too much," growled Gilroy. "Come, we must catch
him by all means," and he ran after Joe, with Potts following.

CHAPTER IV.

LOST IN THE FOREST.

"I must get away from them!"

This was the one thought which surged through Joe Moore's brain as he
dashed from the cave in the mountain. He felt that if he was captured it
would go hard with him. Did the desperadoes learn that he had overheard
their conversation, they might make his very life pay the forfeit.

Forward he pitched, into the rain and the inky darkness, not knowing in
what direction and just then caring but little. His one idea was to put
distance between himself and his pursuers.

"Stop!" he heard the men call, and heard the clicking of a pistol
hammer. Then he reached some brushwood, and, crouching low, continued to
move on. No shot came, for the reason that the desperadoes could not
locate him with certainty.

At length Joe reached a clump of trees. Had he not had his hands before
him he might have run into them head first. He glided around them, and
then continued onward, down a slope leading into a broad belt of timber.
Still with his hands before him, he advanced through the undergrowth and
between the stately trees for a distance of several hundred feet.

He was now exhausted with running and with fighting the entangling
vines, and had to halt to catch his breath. As he came to a stop he
listened attentively, to learn if the men were following, but the
downpour of rain drowned out every other sound.

Soaked to the skin, hatless, and still short of breath, he went on once
more, feeling that he was not yet far enough from the cave for safety.
He tried to steer a course in the direction of the cave where he had
left Darry and the old scout, but whether he was successful or not he
could not tell.

A hundred yards further and Joe came to another slope, covered with
prairie grass. Down this he rolled in the darkness, to bring up in more
brush below. Then he climbed out of the hollow at the opposite side,
and, reaching a large fallen tree, sat down to rest and think over his
situation. The tree lay partly under one with wide-spreading branches,
so the boy was somewhat sheltered from the storm.

It must be confessed that Joe's hea