Trap
Disciple five followed the whole entourage of the elders chasing Sam for a good hour deep into the woods and all of a sudden, Sam stopped running.
He is standing in a clear patch within the woods and with one look anyone could see that it was cleared recently.
Disciple five who was estimating Sam's arrival understood why the delay is. Sam was setting a trap here and now he managed to lure every one of his targets into this place. He doesn't know why he did that, but he just started making mental notes of everything.
That is his job with this scout mission. He needs to follow Sam and understand what he is doing in the process of destroying these organizations. He needs to understand how Sam moves, how Sam fights when he is surrounded by a group, how he deals with individual battles, how does he approach the organization that he is about to destroy, these are the things that he needs to understand and explain to the rest of his fellow disciples.