easy, anyway," said Bob. "Now, are we all ready?"

With infinite caution the boys wormed their way through the brushwood,
Bob leading. By luck rather than good management Jimmy managed to be as
quiet as his friends, and after almost an hour of this slow progress Bob
judged that they were far enough away from the cabin to risk a faster
pace. The shack was out of sight among the trees when he sprang to his
feet, followed by the others, and in a short time they had reached the
path leading to the main road. Here it was still necessary to be
extremely careful, for they never knew at what moment some turn in the
path would bring them face to face with some of the robber band.
Fortunately nothing of the kind happened, and soon they reached the main
road and started at high speed for camp.

"I wonder if we can't take some sort of a short cut," came from Joe as
they raced along.

"That's the talk," puffed poor Jimmy, who had great difficulty in
keeping up with his chums. "The shorter the better."

"We won't dare risk it," returned Bob. "Why we might get lost."

"Who's afraid of getting lost?"

"We are, for we might lose too much time and all our plans would go to
smash. No, we've got to stick to the main road."

"How much further have we to go?"

"I don't know."

"We've got to chase along until we reach camp," put in Joe. "Hustle now,
every minute may be precious."

"I can't hustle any more than I am hustling," panted poor Jimmy. "Do you
want me to drop down of heart failure or something like that?"

"Maybe we'd better go along and leave Jimmy behind," suggested Joe, with
a wink at Bob.

"Not much," cried the stout youth, and after that did his best to keep
up with the others.

Not a great while later they came in sight of camp, much to their
relief.

Mr. Brandon was astonished to see them back so soon, but as briefly as
possible Bob told him of what they had learned and showed him the code
message.

"You fellows have done a clever bit of detective work, and with
reasonable luck it ought to be possible to bag the whole gang to-night,"
said Brandon. "I know where Hicks Bridge is. It's about five miles this
side of Barberton, and an ideal place for an ambuscade. The road runs
between high banks just before it gets to the bridge, and some of the
gang posted on those banks could command the road from either direction.
But I'll get in communication with the chief of police of Barberton, and
we'll see if we can't