As the three boys disappeared Billy blinked a while, finally stretching out in the tonneau, pulling over himself Paul's big rug and--though he did not mean to--he soon fell asleep. The woods were unusually quiet; no wind, much shade, with a soothing buzz and hum of insects that was in itself conducive to drowsiness. The other three, not deeming it necessary to actually visit the old tavern just then, took the compass with which Paul had provided himself and struck out due south. "How will we know when we have gone half a mile?" suddenly questioned Paul. "It's too thick with underbrush to pace off so many yards. Say, how many yards in half a mile? Anyone know?" "Seventeen-sixty in a mile," said Dave, drawing from his pocket one of those circular shielded tape measures. "Figure it out for yourselves." "Eight hundred and eighty, you gander!" This from Paul, looking after Phil, who had gone on ahead with the compass. "Gimme hold of one end! How long is the thing, anyhow?" Stretched out, it seemed that the tape was ten yards long. With Paul linking a finger in the ring and Dave holding the circular shield, the boys began their march after Phil. Paul, breaking a twig when he came to a stopping place, would forge on again with Dave carefully following, keeping the line taut until Paul, stumbling, jerked the reel from Dave's hand and thereby created some confusion. Both had been keeping count of each ten yards, but there was a difference of one length of the tape between. "Aw--why didn't you hold to your end? I tell you my count is right!" "No, it ain't," was MacLester's reply. "What I know, I _know!_" This difficulty finally adjusted, the pair resumed their march in Phil's wake, who had taken particular pains to leave a trail of broken branches so that the rest could follow. Going thus, they diligently but slowly kept on until Dave suddenly looked up, shouting: "Eighty-eight lengths! We're there--eight hundred and eighty yards. Hullo! What's become of Phil?" No Phil was in sight. CHAPTER XIII THE KIDNAPERS Phil, it appeared, was the only one to think out two reasons why there was little necessity for being exact about measurements. Coster had drawn his rough diagram on the envelope probably from memory. It was, according to Coster, somewhere near a half mile from the tavern to the split hemlock. The main thing was to keep the proper direction, if anything like strict obedience was due to the pencilled chart. Therefore he took upon himself the sole task of going south, and when he had convinced himself that he was somewhere in the neighborhood of that half mile, he began to look about for the big split hemlock.