With a yell of startled anger, the man who bore the bleeding marks of Johnny's fingers redoubled his speed and darted crazily for the roadway. Before he had reached it the man by the car had leaped swiftly to the wheel and rolled away.
From the forest came again the signal: "Where are you?"
Johnny groaned. Frantically he tried the rebel again. It readily spat its answer this time, an instantaneous duplicate of shots.
"I'm here. What do you want?"
In the lightning glare the man ahead made off wildly across the fields.
Running, Johnny cocked his ears for the familiar assurance of one shot.
"All right," it would mean; "I only wanted to know where you are," but it did not come.
Instead--two shots again in rapid succession--an interval--and then another.
"I am in serious trouble," barked the signal in the forest. "Come as fast as you can."
With a groan Johnny abandoned the chase and retraced his steps. Thus a perverse Fate ever snipped the thread of an embryo adventure.
A light flickered dully among the trees to the east. Johnny cupped his hands and yodeled. The light moved. A little later as he crashed hurriedly through the underbrush, Diane called to him. She was holding a lantern high above something on the ground, her face quite colorless.
"I'm glad you're here!" she said. "It's the aviator, Johnny. He's hurt--"
The aviator stirred.
"He's comin' 'round," said Johnny peering down into the white face in the aureole of lantern-light. "The rain in his face likely. . . . Well, young fellow, what do you think of yourself, eh?"
"Not much," said Philip blankly and stared about him.
"Can you follow us to the camp fire yonder?" asked Diane compassionately.
Philip, though evidently very dizzy, thought likely he could, and he did. That his shoulder was wet and very painful, he was well aware, though somehow he had forgotten why. Moreover, his head throbbed queerly.
There came a tent and a bed and a blur of incidents.
Mr. Poynter dazedly resigned himself to a general atmosphere of unreality.