increase my speed without altering the rhythm of my footfalls. As I
went, I speculated on the intentions of my friend and noted with
interest and a little surprise that I was quite without fear of him. I
suspected him of being a footpad, one of the gang of which Grayson had
spoken, and I had set forth along this unfrequented road in a spirit of
mere curiosity to see if it were really so.

"Presently I came to a gate at the entrance of a cart-track and here I
halted to listen. From the road behind me came the sound of footsteps;
quick steps but not sharp and crisp; rather of a shuffling, stealthy
quality. I climbed quietly over the gate and took up a position behind
the trunk of an elm that grew in the hedgerow. The footsteps came on
apace. Soon round a bend of the moon-lighted road a figure appeared
moving forward rapidly and keeping in what shadow there was. I watched
it through the thick hedge as it approached and resolved itself into a
seedy-looking man carrying a thick knobbed stick.

"Opposite the gate the man halted and, as I could see by his shadow,
looked across the silvery fields that stretched away down to the valley
and listened, but only for a few moments. Then he started forward again
at something between a quick walk and a slow trot.

"As soon as he had gone I came out and began to walk down the
cart-track. My figure must have stood out conspicuously on the bare
field and must have been plainly visible from the ridge-way. I did not
hurry. Pursuing my way quietly down the gentle slope, I went on for some
three hundred yards until the ground fell away more steeply; and here,
before descending, I looked over my shoulder.

"A man was getting over the gate.