A quarter of a mile and the wood grew thicker, being filled with an undergrowth of jungle.
"If you will stop here, Ned, I will push on through this jungle, and see how far it goes. The girls can never get through this. I think we are near the edge of the wood; it looks lighter ahead."
In ten minutes he came back.
"Ned, we are on the river; it is not fifty yards from here."
This was serious news.
"What a pity we did not take to the left instead of the right when we left the horses. However, they won't know which way we have gone, and must watch the whole wood. We must push forward, and by keeping as close as we can to the river shall most likely pass them; besides, they will be some time before they decide upon forming a chain round the wood, and as there are only about twenty of them they will be along way apart. There! do you hear them? they are coming back! Now let us go on again."
In ten minutes they reached the edge of the wood. They could see nothing of the horsemen. Keeping in the fields, but close to the line of jungle that bordered the river, they walked onward for upward of an hour. Then they came upon the road. The river had made a bend, and the road now followed its bank.
"Shall we cross it and keep in the open country, or follow it, girls?"
"Follow it as long as we can keep on walking," Kate said. "It is in the right direction, and we can go on so much faster than in the fields. If we hear them coming along we can get into the jungle on the bank."
"Listen, Kate," Rose said a few minutes afterward; "they are following!"
