of eyes had observed them when they entered the wood. Yeggmen are
as cautious and as careful about what they do in the lonely places among
their brethren as the cave man used to be in primitive times.

For they prey upon one another, those men, as readily as they prey upon
society. Among them it is always merely a question of the survival of
the fittest--and the fittest is always the quickest, and the strongest,
or the most alert.

It was not likely that they would have this firelight to themselves for
a very long time, and they knew it; and, in fact, it was not ten minutes
after their meal was finished, and their pipes were alight, before, like
shadows, three other men suddenly loomed beside the fire, as if they had
sprung out of the ground.

And they stalked forward from three sides at once--came forward as if
they owned the woods.

But not one of our four friends, already seated there, made a motion or
uttered a word. They smoked stolidly on, but with their eyes alert for
anything that might happen.

And then, out of the darkness around them, appeared three more figures,
and then two more; and the eight, who had seemed to come together,
grouped themselves with their backs to the fire, and gazed sullenly and
silently down upon the four they found there.

CHAPTER III.

THE "KING'S" LIEUTENANT.

The moment was an ominous one, and no one was better aware of the fact
than Nick Carter. Everything depended now upon the perfection which his
three assistants had attained in the parts they were to play.

The sudden coming of the eight yeggmen, arriving as they had, so closely
together, could not be the result of mere chance, and Nick had no doubt
that they were in reality members of the very gang he was seeking. For
the detective had determined in the beginning that the headquarters of
the gang was somewhere in this vicinity. Everything in his first
investigations pointed to that. And if their headquarters were located
near that wood, or below the track in the swamp, it was certain that
they kept outposts stationed where the arrival of newcomers could be
reported at once.

Thus the appearance of Nick Carter on the scene, and the coming of the
others soon after his arrival, had doubtless been reported, and their
actions carefully watched from the very beginning.

The detective was intensely glad now that his own actions, and those of
his friends, had been so perfect--that is, perfect in the sense of
creat