Using the pin to cut through the tape, authorities say he was gradually able to wriggle free and dislodge the sock from his mouth. Then, he began wandering through the woods in hopes of finding someone to help him.

He was 20 miles away from where a dozen children watched Friday as he was forced into a red pickup truck at his bus stop. The walk took hours. He found a farmer late in the day who lent him a cellphone and called his mother -- and foiled his captor's kidnapping-for-ransom plan.

''This man kidnapped the wrong kid,'' Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells said. ``This is an observant kid. He's courageous.''

Investigators searched a Bradenton house early Sunday, and issued an arrest warrant for Vicente Ignacio Beltran Moreno, 22, but authorities believe he has fled the state.

Beltran, a native of Mexico, had worked three years ago at a farm near where the teen was tied up, but later became a laborer for an aluminum contractor, said sheriff's spokesman Dave Bristow.

Investigators believe the kidnapper planned to leave the boy tied up in the woods until a ransom was paid, Wells said. Authorities were trying to determine whether there were other suspects involved.

On Saturday, investigators and the boy returned to the farm where he fled a day earlier. A sketch of the suspect was shown to workers who identified Beltran, Bristow said.

The truck suspected of being used in the kidnapping was found outside the home believed to be Beltran's, detectives said. They also found a ransom note with threats, though they would not say where it was found or what it demanded.

Beltran could not be reached for comment, and did not have a published telephone listing in Manatee County.

It appeared the boy was chosen randomly from the group of children in Parrish, a town about 30 miles southeast of St. Petersburg that has seen explosive growth but still has many rural areas, authorities said.

''Clay was just at the wrong place at the wrong time,'' Wells said.