He was about to take a step when a figure glided stealthily by.
"By all that's astonishing, it's Tag Mosher!" Prescott gasped.
He clutched at the tree trunk again, watching, for Tag had halted and appeared to be peering hard through the foliage at the fire some distance away.
"I wouldn't want him to find me, now!" thought Dick, a cold chill running over him at the thought of Tag's desperate savagery.
But at that moment Prescott accidentally made a sound, which, slight though it was, caught young Mosher's ear.
In a twinkling Tag wheeled about, listening, peering.

Then, straight toward Prescott he came.
"Oh, it's you, is it ?" demanded young Mosher harshly.
"Yes," Prescott admitted, speaking as steadily as he could, though his heart sank for the moment.

He knew that Tag would have time to give him a beating that would be doubly severe in his present condition of weakness and pain.

That beating could be given in a few swift seconds, and the help within reach of Dick's voice could not arrive until young Mosher had had time to slip away among the trees of the forest that he knew so well.

"What do you want with me ?" demanded Tag, bringing his leering face closer to Prescott's..