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60 "To be sure," answered Dick, and rushed out, and the others after him.

"Keep back there!" they heard Dangler cry, as they appeared on the trail back of the log cabin. "Keep back, or it will be the worse for you!"

"Stop!" called Dick. "You might as well give up Dangler; you are bound to be caught some time."

"Not much! I am armed and I warn you to keep back," answered the freight thief, and then a bend of the trail hid him from view.

"Do you think he'd dare to shoot?" asked Tom.

"There is no telling what a desperate man will do," replied Dick. "We had better be cautious."

After that they advanced with care. Presently the trail came out on a mountain road and this passed over some rocks and crossed two other roads. They saw no more of Dangler, and the footprints had disappeared.

"He has slipped us," said Tom, coming to a halt and resting on a fallen tree. "Hang the luck anyway!"

"He came back to the cabin for his things," mused Sam. "I guess he is going to leave the neighborhood, and maybe for good."

Chagrinned over their failure to catch the freight thief, the boys looked around that neighborhood for awhile and then retraced their steps to the log cabin. Here they found several old