Then he sawed at the legs, and cut the shackles which tied them together, and then--most circumspectly--assaulted the cord which bound Dickson's neck to the trunk.

There now remained only the two bonds which fastened the legs and the body to the tree.
There was a sound in the wood different from the wind and stream.
Jaikie listened like a startled hind.
"They're comin' back," he gasped.

"Just you bide where ye are and let on ye're still tied up." He disappeared in the scrub as inconspicuously as a rat, while two of the tinklers came up the slope from the waterside.

Dickson in a fever of impatience cursed Wee Jaikie for not cutting his remaining bonds so that he could at least have made a dash for freedom.

And then he realized that the boy had been right.