Page:Curwood--The Courage of Captain Plum.djvu/134

 surance of one who had known it for a long time. "If they loose the dogs there will be no time for the ship," he added, with a suggestive hunch of his naked shoulders. "Follow me!"

There was no alarm in his voice and Nathaniel caught the flashing gleam of white teeth as Neil smiled grimly back at him, running in the lead. From the man's eyes the master of the Typhoon had sized up his companion as a fighter. The smile—daring, confident, and yet signaling their danger—assured him that he was right, and he followed close behind without question. A dozen rods up the path Neil turned into a dense thicket of briars and underbrush and for ten minutes they plunged through the pathless jungle. Now and then Nathaniel saw the three red stripes of the whipper's lash upon the bare shoulders of the man ahead and to these every step seemed to add new wounds made by the thorns. As they came out upon an old roadway the captain stripped off his coat and Neil thrust himself into it as they ran.