of the tonneau before any of the others had time to collect their wits.
As the man shouted his warning the lad struck out through the oozy
ground, seeking, with every ounce of his strength, to shroud himself in
the darkness at the pond edge before the pistol wielder could locate him.

But he had not gone more than a few steps when--

Bang!

A red flash cut the night behind him and a bullet whistled by his ear.

"Look out, you fool, you don't want to kill him," came a voice behind him.

"Gid Gibbons," flashed through Roy's mind. He was almost at a thick clump
of alders now. As he heard the splashing of the bodies of the abductors,
as they took to the water after him, he plunged into the coppice and
pushed rapidly on into its intricacies.

Shouts and cries came from behind him, and suddenly a blinding shaft of
white radiance cut through the blackness. They had turned on the
searchlight of the car in a determined effort to locate their escaped
prisoner.

As the light penetrated among the maze of alder trunks, Roy threw himself
flat. While his pursuers hunted about, muttering and angrily discussing
the situation, he crouched in his shelter, hardly daring to breathe.
After what seemed an eternity of suspense he heard one of the men, whose
voice he seemed to recognize as that of the pistol carrier, angrily
declaiming.

"Aw, what's ther use, ther kid is a mile off by this time, worse luck."

"Hush, don't talk so loud," came another voice. "You don't know who may
be about."

"Well, we'd better be getting that car out of the mud and making
ourselves scarce," came in the tones which Roy was certain were those of
Gid Gibbons. "If there's a hue and cry raised about this and they find
that car stranded here they can easy trace us."

"That's so," was the response in the voice of Jukes Dade. "Come on, boys,
we'll get her out of this confounded slough if we can, and get back to
town."

The voices died away as they retreated, splashing like water animals
through the mud and ooze.

As silence fell once more Roy straightened up from his unpleasant
situation and looked about him. The night was starry, and above his head
he could see The Dipper. He knew that the outside stars of this
constellation pointed to the North Star and he soon had the latter
located. This gave him the points of the compass, and figuring that
Acatonick must lie to the east of his present position, he struck out in
that direction as nearly as he could.