Impetuously he leaped on through the bushes, but when nearly there he
stumbled and fell over a tree root. Following the fallen trunk he noted
an enormous split, extending from where the trunk divided halfway down
towards the upturned root.

"By hokey! Can this be it?"

Plunging through the thick bushes, he reached the place where the
branches spread out over the ground, first noticing that the withered
leaves, like needles, still sharp and pointed, were undoubtedly of the
hemlock variety. Moreover, the big rock which had first caught his
attention seemed to be about the proper distance from where the roots
showed the hemlock must have stood before the storm, or whatever caused
it to fall, had done its work.

About this time he heard calls from his partners, for Phil was yet
hidden from them by intervening bushes. Moreover, he was some distance
away, which confirmed one of two facts. Either the two lads had measured
or counted wrong in their advance with the tapeline or, as Phil
concluded, the distance was only approximate. A prisoner, trusting
largely to memory, Coster could not be exact, unless by sheer accident.

"Hullo! Here I am, boys! Come this way!"

They came, Phil assisting their progress by calling out now and then.
When they arrived, no hemlock being in sight, the boys stared first at
Phil seated on the trunk of an upturned tree, then at the boulder close
by.

"How'd you get way out here?" demanded Paul.

"Followed my nose! How would you think?" Phil looked amused. "What's
that you got--a tapeline?"

"Yep," replied Dave. "Wanted to be exact as possible."

Phil laughed. Said he:

"Do you reckon Coster was very exact when he drew that map--from
memory?"

"Oh--stuff! I don't see any big split hemlock."

"You're looking at it, stupid! I'm sitting on the butt of it, and right
there is the rock, I think."

At first inclined to scoff, both lads now saw Phil's side of it at once.
Dave looked about again.

"It's a thick place here," he ventured. "You were lucky to stumble on it
this way, Phil."

"Didn't stumble on it. I was particular about keeping my compass right.
When I got where I thought I might have gone half a mile or so I began
to look round a bit. I couldn't see any big split hemlock, but I did
manage to find this big rock. After that it was easy to find the tree,
even though it had been blown down."

After some further talk it was agreed that the first step would be to
return to the