"But how?"

"Wait, and I'll tell you," Dave went on, forcing himself to talk a trifle more calmly. "When I'm free I'll show you the spot over there, in the thicket between the two clumps of bushes. Well, I had gotten this far when I saw the missing steaks. They rested on a tin pan on the ground in the thicket. It looked as though the thief of our supper had gone away to get water or something.

I had just stepped, on tiptoe, of course, past this tree when I heard a soft step behind me. Before I could turn, the noose was dropped over my head, and then down on my neck. It was jerked tight, like a flash, and I was pulled against this tree. The fellow took some kind of hitch around the trunk of the tree to hold me-----"

"Yes; I see the hitch," a.s.sented d.i.c.k. "It was well done."

"So well done that it held me, for a moment," Dave went on. "The noose choked me, for a brief s.p.a.ce, so that I didn't have much presence of mind. Before I recovered myself, the fellow had pa.s.sed the rope several times around my body and arms, and had taken the extra loops on my arms. By that time I was so helpless that I couldn't stir to free myself."

"And you didn't see the fellow?" asked d.i.c.k.

"Not a glimpse of him. He worked from behind, and did his trick like lightning."

"But there are no steaks, nor any plate, on the ground in the thicket now," Reade reported, after looking.

"No," Darry grunted. "The fellow who tried me up like this pa.s.sed over my eyes a dirty cloth that perhaps he would call a handkerchief.

Then I heard him over by the thicket. Next he was back here and had whisked that cloth away from my eyes. That was the last I heard of him."

"Why didn't you set up a roar as soon as he attacked you?" demanded Tom Reade.

"The noose bound my throat so tightly, I couldn't," Darry explained.

"I was seeing stars, and I was dizzy. After he had taken a few hitches of the rope around me he eased up on the noose a bit."

"Did you 'holler' then?" questioned d.i.c.k.

"No," Dave Darrin admitted honestly. "I used up all my breath telling that unknown, unseen fellow just what I thought of him."

"If you want to know what I think of the fellow," uttered young Prescott, "it seems to me that the unknown chap is clever and bright enough to be capable of better things than stealing supper from other people. This tie-up is about the most ingenious thing I've seen in a long time."

"Maybe I'd appreciate it more," retorted Darry, "if I could see it as you do, on another fellow. Are you going to hurry up and cut away this rope?"

"Not if you are able to wait calmly while I untie it," d.i.c.k answered.

"It's surely a good piece of rope. It will go part way toward paying for the steaks."

With that Prescott began to untie the knots. When his fingers ached from this from of exercise, Greg took his place. Meanwhile, Tom Reade explored the thicket where Dave had seen the plate of steaks. There was no sign of the food taken from the camp. This Tom made out by the aid of lighted matches, as the long shadows were now falling in the woods.

"I'm glad, now, that you didn't cut the rope," said Dave, as at last he stepped free. "We'll save his rope, for I hope to find that fellow again."

"What will you do to him if you catch him?" grinned Reade.

"Maybe I'll need the rope to lynch him with," uttered Darry grimly.

Tom threw back his head, laughing heartily.

"Our dear, savage, blood-thirsty old Darry!" Reade laughed. "You talk as vindictively as a pirate, but if you found your enemy hurt you'd drop everything else and nurse him back into condition.

Darry, you know you would!"

"Let's get back to camp," urged Greg. "Supper is ready, but no one has had any yet. My stomach feels like an empty balloon."

"All right, then," agreed Darrin gruffly, "though I'd sooner catch that fellow than eat."

"That word, 'eat,' sounds like a poem!" sighed Greg, tightening his belt as the quartette turned campward.

"So you didn't get a single glimpse of your---your annoyer?" asked Prescott.

"Not what you could call a glimpse," Darrin responded. "Two or three times I caught sight of the fellow's shirt sleeves as he pa.s.sed the rope around me. His shirt sleeves were of a light tan color, so I suppose that is the color of his entire shirt.

That, however, is the sole clue I have to the scoundrel's description."

"I'd like to meet the fellow," mused d.i.c.k.

"Maybe you'll have that pleasure," hinted Darry with the nearest approach to a smile he had yet shown.

"You mean you'd like to see me tied up in the same fashion, and then discover whether I could keep my temper under such circ.u.mstances?"

laughed young Prescott.

"Never mind what I mean," Dave retorted.

They were soon in camp, now, after calling to Dan and Harry two or three times in order to locate their way. At last, however, they came in sight of the glowing embers of fire and the rays of the two lanterns that Dan had lighted and hung up.

"I smell something that smells mighty good," sniffed Dave. "Did any of you fellows recover the steaks? Have you been keeping something back from me?"

"I don't believe you'll find the steaks in camp," d.i.c.k retorted, "but you'll find something that will taste fully as good."

With that the quartette charged into camp. Everything was ready for the table by the time each fellow had washed his hands and face in the one tin basin that served the camp.

"Put one of those lanterns on the table, Dan," called d.i.c.k, as he finished drying himself on a towel. "Another night, if we eat after dark, we'll try to have a campfire that'll light the place up like an electric light."

"Another night, unless some of our neighbors move," predicted Darry, "we won't have food enough left to make it worth while to try to have supper!"

The boys sat down in great good humor, even Dave softening when he saw the bountiful supper that had been prepared. Not one of them felt nervous about the possible nearness of the late prowler.

The boys were six to one, whoever the prowler might be. Besides, this mysterious stranger seemed to prefer humor to violence.

Yet, all the time they were eating and chattering---and d.i.c.k did his full share of both that young man, Prescott, was also busily thinking up plans by means of which he hoped to be able to gain a closer view of the recent prowler.

Of these plans he said no word to his chums, for there was more than a chance that the human mystery of the woods was even then within earshot, off under the shadows among the trees.

CHAPTER V

d.i.c.k GRAPPLES IN THE DARK

At last the meal was finished, this time without the help of the prowler. Dave and Dan washed the dishes, while Tom and Harry carried water enough to fill the hogshead that had been brought along as part of their camp equipment.

At the same time, d.i.c.k and Greg unstrapped and set up the six light-weight folding canvas cots, standing them in a row in the tent. Next they arranged the bedding that had been loaned by mothers at home, and made up the six beds. Enough fuel to start a fire in the morning was also brought in.

"And now, what did we come out here in the woods for?" inquired d.i.c.k smilingly.