Have your guns ready for use, men." Although all this was spoken in a whisper, inaudible beyond its immediate group of hearers, there was no mistaking the man's stern meaning, and Winn experienced an uneasy dread such as he had not heretofore felt throughout this strange adventure.
Suppose there should be some one in the hut?
Suppose the "river-traders" had returned to the island and should resent this intrusion even to the point of resisting it?
In such a case what would happen to him?
If his captors were triumphant they would declare he had led them into a trap, for doing which they had promised to hang him.

If, on the other hand, the "river-traders" had returned and should make a successful fight, would not their wrath also be directed towards him for leading their assailants to the hut?
In either case, it seemed to the bewildered boy that his position was decidedly unpleasant, and he awaited the immediate developments of the situation with no little anxiety.
Those who had followed him had disappeared like shadows, and Winn could not detect a sound save the suppressed breathing of the man who had been detailed to guard him, and who now held his arm.
Suddenly a dog's bark broke the stillness, and a loud challenge, followed by a pistol shot, rang out through the night air.

There was a confused trampling; the forest echoed with a roar of guns; the door of the hut was burst open, and a furious rush was made for the interior.
In his excitement Winn's guard loosed his hold of the boy's arm and took a step forward, the better to distinguish what was going on.
Winn was free, and acting upon the impulse of the moment, he slipped behind a great tree-trunk, stole noiselessly a few paces farther, and then dashed away with the speed of a deer back over the trail leading to the river.

He did not pause when he reached the camp in which he had passed the night so unhappily, but bounded down the bank to the water's edge.

Here he cast loose the painter of the skiff that had brought Mr.Riley and his men to the island, and, with a mighty shove towards the channel, gave a spring that landed him at full length in its bottom.