beginning now, instantly. But it must be done as----"

"Oh, as privately as possible! Certainly!"

"Certainly. You want the reward and you want it all. But understand,
I know you're in error, and I go with you solely to prove you are.
Now, by your theory----"

"Oh, come along!" We went. I killed time over my coffee, and in
getting a saddle for one of my hired span. "You must excuse us if
we're not polite," my friends apologized after another flash of
impatience. "Of course those niggers are not on the run in broad day,
but their trail's getting cold!"

"You're not as bad-mannered as I am," I laughed as we mounted, but
their allusion to hounds made me enjoy the burden of my six-shooter.

As we ambled off, "What were you going to say," one asked me, "about
our 'theory,' or something?"

"Oh! I see you think Mrs. Southmayd must have met up with company and
left her servants to follow on to the next station alone."

"Exactly. We tracked the darkies along the edge of the road; but her
horse tracks--we could only see that no horse tracks left the road
where any of their man tracks left it."

When we had gone a mile or so one of the boys turned to leave us by a
neighborhood road, saying: "I'll rejoin you, 'cross fields, where you
turned back last night. I'm going for the dogs."