ular shielded tape measures. "Figure it out for yourselves."

"Eight hundred and eighty, you gander!" This from Paul, looking after
Phil, who had gone on ahead with the compass. "Gimme hold of one end!
How long is the thing, anyhow?"

Stretched out, it seemed that the tape was ten yards long. With Paul
linking a finger in the ring and Dave holding the circular shield, the
boys began their march after Phil. Paul, breaking a twig when he came to
a stopping place, would forge on again with Dave carefully following,
keeping the line taut until Paul, stumbling, jerked the reel from Dave's
hand and thereby created some confusion. Both had been keeping count of
each ten yards, but there was a difference of one length of the tape
between.

"Aw--why didn't you hold to your end? I tell you my count is right!"

"No, it ain't," was MacLester's reply. "What I know, I _know!_"

This difficulty finally adjusted, the pair resumed their march in Phil's
wake, who had taken particular pains to leave a trail of broken branches
so that the rest could follow. Going thus, they diligently but slowly
kept on until Dave suddenly looked up, shouting:

"Eighty-eight lengths! We're there--eight hundred and eighty yards.
Hullo! What's become of Phil?"

No Phil was in sight.

CHAPTER XIII

THE KIDNAPERS

Phil, it appeared, was the only one to think out two reasons why there
was little necessity for being exact about measurements. Coster had
drawn his rough diagram on the envelope probably from memory. It was,
according to Coster, somewhere near a half mile from the tavern to the
split hemlock. The main thing was to keep the proper direction, if
anything like strict obedience was due to the pencilled chart. Therefore
he took upon himself the sole task of going south, and when he had
convinced himself that he was somewhere in the neighborhood of that half
mile, he began to look about for the big split hemlock.

None could he then see. There were other hemlocks, but all of a younger,
second-growth variety. So he ranged to and fro, but no such tree could
he find. The undergrowth was not thick, yet it prevented clear vision of
anything more than a few yards away. He was about to give up, feeling a
first sense of coming despair, when he caught sight of a high bulge
upward through the tops of some clumps of bushes. He sprang on a nearby
log and his pulse thrilled a bit when he saw that what was in view was
the rounded top of a big rock.