'Well, if 'e's still in the woods, we'll 'ave 'im safe.'

'_If_ he's still in the woods!' thought Barrett with a shiver.

After this there was silence. Barrett waited for what he thought was a
quarter of an hour--it was really five minutes or less--then he peeped
cautiously over the edge of his hiding-place. Yes, they had certainly
gone, unless--horrible thought--they were waiting so close to the trunk
of the tree as to be invisible from where he stood. He decided that the
possibility must be risked. He was down on the ground in record time.
Nothing happened. No hand shot out from its ambush to clutch him. He
breathed more freely, and began to debate within himself which way to
go. Up the hill it must be, of course, but should he go straight up, or
to the left or to the right? He would have given much to know which way
the keepers had gone, particularly he of the dog. They had separated,
he knew. He began to reason the thing out. In the first place if they
had separated, they must have gone different ways. It did not take him
long to arrive at that conclusion. The odds, therefore, were that one
had gone to the right up-stream, the other down-stream to the left. His
knowledge of human nature told him that nobody would willingly walk
up-hill if it was possible for him to walk on the flat. Therefore,
assuming the two keepers to be human, they had gone along the valley.
Therefore, his best plan would be to make straight for the top of the
hill, as straight as he could steer, and risk it. Just as he was about
to start, his eye caught the two pill-boxes, lying on the turf a few
yards from where he had placed them.

'May as well take what I can get,' he thought. He placed them carefully
in his pocket. As he did so a faint bark came to him on the breeze from