calling out in such words as a Boy Scout would be apt to
understand. They ran for some distance, until they fell over a bit of
rocky ground, and then stood looking toward a point in the darkness from
which a sound of footsteps came.

"You go on back to camp," whispered Tommy to Sandy, "and make all the
noise you can going, and talk to yourself, so he'll think we're talking
together. I'll put out my light and follow that chump by the noise he
makes. I guess I can do it all right!"

"Aw, let's both go," pleaded Sandy.

"One's got to go back to camp to put him off his guard!" insisted Tommy,
"Run along, like a good little boy, now," he added with a grin.

Sandy departed, talking to himself, and trying his best to make noise
enough for two boys, while Tommy turned off his light and crept forward
in the darkness in the direction of the sounds he had heard.

For a time he seemed to gain on the person who was making his way some
hundred yards or more ahead of him, but at last, try as he might, the
sound of footsteps gradually died away, and there were only the sounds
of the night in the boy's ears.

He paused, after a time, and threw himself down on the rocky slope. The
campfire seemed to be a long distance away, now, and the boy had just
decided to give over his search at that time and return to the camp.

When he started to rise, however, he found a heavy hand pressed down on
either shoulder. His amazement was so great that for a moment he sat
perfectly still.

But there were cowboy vigilantes, train robbers, and detectives
somewhere in the hills, so the boy was not quite so sure of the
personality of the other as he had been at the first instant of contact.

"Well?" he said in a moment.

"Who are you?" came the question, not in the voice of a boy, but in the
gruff tones of a man who was taking no pains to make a good impression.

"A boy from the camp down yonder," Tommy answered.

The boy was thinking fast. This might be one of the detectives, or it
might be one of the train robbers, or it might be one of the cowboys, or
it might be the escaped convict himself.

"What are you boys camping there for?" was asked.

"Vacation!" was the reply.

"Which way did the cowboys go?" was the next question.

Tommy needed no further introduction to the man who was clinging to his
shoulders with a grip that was positively painful. No one but the train
robbers would be apt to be interested in the direction taken by the
c