Pal wagged his tail and made an enthusiastic attempt to lick his master's face. Jeff pushed him away; Pal's tongue was approximately the size of a dish towel and the consistency of sand paper. Not to be defeated, Pal got in a number of good licks on his friend's hand and Jeff chided, "Cut it out! I can wash myself!" As he walked to a little runlet that trickled through the pines and washed his face and hands, Jeff thought of last night. In the valley up which he had traveled, that runlet became a good-sized stream, with several deep pools. Having fallen into two of them last night, Jeff had discovered the pools the hard way. But he had achieved his purpose. It was not only possible but highly probable that Joe Parker and Pop had ideas which they hadn't bothered to disclose when letting Jeff out of jail. If they were able to catch him again, he would be charged with jail breaking. That meant six months, and six months was plenty of time to steal the pack's contents. However, even if they followed him into the mountains, they couldn't catch him. A satisfying vision of the Delview police looking for him, and of Pop and the constable hopefully waiting, formed in Jeff's mind. He grinned happily. Even though he was stranded in a wilderness with no customers in sight, and no telling when he would find any, Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., was in business again. Jeff took his watch out, saw that it had stopped, set it for nine o'clock, and wound it. He might be an hour, two hours, or three hours, off. It made no difference. Tarrant Enterprises, Ltd., guided its fortunes by the circumstances of the moment and not by the dial of a watch or clock. Any hour of the twenty-four, or any minute of any hour, might present a precious and never to be repeated opportunity. Therefore, it was better to be alert for what the moment might present than to depend too heavily on any timepiece. Last night he had been in too much of a hurry to think of eating, and when he had finally put what he considered an adequate distance between Cressman and himself, he had been too tired. Now he took the remainder of bread and cheese from his pack and divided both in half. "Chow time!" he said grandly. "Here, Pal, a wonderful breakfast!" Pal gulped his portion. Jeff ate more slowly, and when he had finished the last crumb he was completely serene. It mattered not at all that he was completely out of food or that it was an unknown distance to the next place where he would be able to buy more. By all means, the future should be carefully weighed, but the future was a great and shining promise and lack of food a small inconvenience. "Let's go!" he said happily.