directly over the path leading away from the stream until well
beyond the sight of those thus left behind. He looked back, and,
seeing nothing of them, turned aside and moved off, until he arrived
at a point beyond the group of three resting on the fallen tree.

Thus, as will be seen, the Ripleys were between the two and Linna
on the one hand, and the single Seneca on the other. He knew the
precise location of the fugitives as well as if they had been in
his field of vision from the first.

He now began approaching them from the rear. Their faces turned
away from him, and everything favored his stealthy advance.

The huge spread of dirt and roots made by the overturning of the
big tree served as a screen, though even without this help he would
probably have succeeded in his effort to steal upon them unawares.

He stepped so carefully upon the dried leaves that no sound was
made, and the most highly trained ear, therefore, would not have
detected him.

If Ben had once risen from his reclining posture and looked around,
if Mrs. Ripley had stood up and done the same, or if little Alice
had indulged in her natural sportiveness, assuredly one of them
would have observed that crouching warrior, gradually drawing closer,
like the moving of a hand over the face of a clock; but none saw
him. Nearer and nearer he came, step by step, until at last he stood
just on the other side of the mass of roots, and not ten feet from
the boy.