rom some of the boys' lips, as though
they were relieved to have the suspense ended.

"Never glimpsed us!" remarked Mark, triumphantly.

"Blind as bats in the day-time!" added Landy.

"They didn't happen to turn this way," said Elmer; "and since you all
kept so still I don't believe they'd have noticed us even if they had
looked. I want to say it was well done, boys."

"That was Johnny Spreen, wasn't it?" asked Landy, as though he wanted
to have someone corroborate what his own eyes had told him.

"It certainly was," said Lil Artha. "The farmer wouldn't let him come
with us, but I guess the Chief just swore them both into his posse, and
then they had to come or run up against the law. A sheriff or a police
Chief can do that, you understand; no matter whether a man wants to
serve or not, he's got to."

"And you all noticed, I reckon," remarked Chatz, "that they were making
straight fo' the hide-out where Hen and that man spent the night. That
shows Johnny must have figured out after we left him that it would be a
good place for hiding. What do you all say about it?"

"Oh! there's no question but what you're correct, old top!" Lil Artha
told him in his queer way. "But I'm real tickled because Elmer didn't
take a notion to hail the Chief, and take him in on our deal."

Elmer laughed at that.

"It wasn't any 'Hail to the Chief' this time, you see, Lil Artha," he
remarked. "We have borne the heat and burden of the day, and it wasn't
right that that crowd, coming in at the tail end of the chase, should
share alike with us. Besides, you remember we decided we wanted to get
at poor Hen _before_ the law could lay a hand on him."

"So we did," muttered Chatz.

"But Elmer," objected Toby, "supposing they get to that place, and find
the birds flown, don't you reckon they'll notice that we've been there?"

"So far as the Chief and his men go," returned the other, "I wouldn't
believe them capable of finding out anything except that the camp was
empty. But all the same I suppose they will know about us."

"Meaning that Johnny will see our tracks, and read the story there; is
that it, Elmer?" queried Lil Artha, quick to catch on to the meaning of
the patrol leader's words.

"Yes, Johnny will tell, because he's been hunting furs so long that he
knows a heap about following tracks. When he finds out there were a
lot of boys in the camp he'll guess we discovered the place."

"Mebbe they'll take it for granted we