n able to follow again in the morning.

He crept back some distance from the river and then, rising, retreated
cautiously up the stream. He caught glimpses of the water twice through
the bushes, and each time the canoe was moving up the river also, one
man paddling and the other, rifle on his arm, watching the western
shore.

Dick had a feeling that he was trapped. Colonel Winchester had been wise
to make him wear his uniform, because it was now certain that he
was going to be taken, and death had always been the punishment of
a captured spy. He put down the thought resolutely, and began to run
through the forest parallel with the river. If it were only the firm
hard ground of the North he could hide his trail from the man behind
him, but here the soil was so soft that every footstep left a deep mark.
Yet he might find fallen trees thrown down by hurricanes, and in a few
minutes he came to a mass of them. He ran deftly from trunk to trunk,
and then continued his flight among the bushes. It broke his trail less
than a rod, but it might take his pursuer ten minutes to recover it, and
now ten minutes were precious.

The soil grew harder and he made better speed, but when he looked
through the foliage he saw the canoe still opposite him. It was easy for
them, on the smooth surface of the river, to keep pace with him, if such
was their object. Furious anger took hold of him. He knew that he must
soon become exhausted, while the men in the canoe would scarcely feel
weariness. Then came the idea.

The canoe was light and thin almost like the birch bark Indian canoe of
the north, and he was a good marksman. It was a last chance, but raising
his rifle he fired the heavy bullet directly at the bottom of the canoe.
As the echo of the first shot was dying he slipped in a cartridge and
sent a second at the same target. He did not seek to kill the men, his
object was the canoe, and as he ran rapidly away he saw it fill with
water and sink, the two soldiers in the stream swimming toward the
western shore.

Dick laughed to himself. He had won a triumph, although he did not yet
know that it would amount to anything. At any rate the men could no
longer glide up and down the river at their leisure looking for him to
come forth from the forest.

He knew that the shots would bring the single pursuer at full speed,
and, as he had saved some ounces of strength, he now ran at his utmost
speed. The river curved again and just beyond the