Christmas was about twenty yards ahead of Bart at the end of a two miles' jaunt, when he shied to the extreme edge of the road and drew to his haunches. Here wagon tracks led into the timber. The road had been used lately, Bart soon discerned. "Come on, Christmas!" he hailed, branching off into the new obscure roadway. The dog circled him, but could not be induced to leave the main road. Bart made a grab for the trailing rope. The animal eluded him, gave him one reproachful look, turned its nose east, and shot off, headed for home like an arrow. "I've lost my ally," murmured Bart, "but I think I have got my clew. Christmas does not like this road, which looks as if he left his captors somewhere down its length. I'll try to locate them." Bart followed the tortuous windings of the narrow road, through brush, over hillocks, down into depressions, and finally into the timber. He came to a clearing, forcing his way past a border of prickly bushes, the tops of which seemed freshly broken, as though a wagon had recently passed over them. As he got past them, Bart came to a decisive halt, and stared hard and with a thrill of satisfaction. Twenty feet away, under a spreading tree, a horse was tethered, and right near it was a red wagon--holding a trunk. CHAPTER XIX FOOLING THE ENEMY Our hero's impulse was to at once spring into the wagon and see if the trunk was still intact. A natural cautiousness checked him, however, and he was glad of it a minute later as he detected a rustling in the thick undergrowth back of the tree. A human figure seemed suddenly to drop to the ground, and a little distance to the left of it Bart was sure he saw two sharp human eyes fixed upon him. He never let on that he suspected for a moment that he was not entirely alone, but, walking over to a tree stump, where, spread out on a newspaper, was the remains of a lunch, he acted delighted at the discovery, picked up a hunk of bread in one hand, a piece of cheese in the other, and, throwing himself on the green sward at full length, proceeded to munch the eatables, with every semblance of satisfaction. Bart's mind worked quickly. He felt that it was up to him to play a part, and he prepared to do so. He was morally certain that two persons in fancied hiding were watching his every movement, and they must be Buck and Hank Tolliver. Bart hoped they had never seen him before; he felt pretty certain that they did not know him at all. Bart sprang to his feet. He had thrown his cap back on his head in a "sporty," off-handish way, and he tried hard to impersonate a reckless young adventurer taking things as they came, and audacious enough to pick up a handy meal anyhow or anywhere. He paid not the least apparent attention to the wagon or the trunk, although he cast more than one sidelong glance in that direction. He walked up to the horse, stroked its nose, and said boisterously: "Wish I had this layout--wouldn't I reach California like a nabob, though!"