"Eh?" Mr. Rogers, in the act of rolling up one of the traces, stared
at him with frank admiration. "Well, you're a sportsman, anyhow.
Catch hold of his arm, Hosken, and run him along with us. Yes, sir,
though I say it as a justice of the peace, be d--d to you, but I like
your spirit. And with the gallows staring you in the face, too!"

"Gallows? What gallows?" panted Mr. Goodfellow in my ear a few
moments later, as we tore in a body down the lane. "Hush!" I panted
in answer. "It's all a mistake."

"It ought to be." We drew up by the stile, where I pointed to the
smear of blood, and Mr. Rogers, calling to Hosken to follow him,
dashed into the coppice and down the path into the rank undergrowth.
I, too, was lifting a leg to throw it over the bar, when Mr.
Goodfellow plucked me by the arm. "Terribly hasty friends you keep
in these parts, Brooks," he said plaintively. "What's it all about?"

"Why, murder!" said I. "Haven't you heard, man?"

"Not a syllable! Good Lord, you don't mean--" He passed a shaky
hand over his forehead as a cry rang back to us through the coppice.

"Here, Hosken, this way! Oh, by the Almighty, be quick, man!"

I vaulted over the stile, Mr. Goodfellow close after me. For two
hundred yards and more--three hundred, maybe--we blundered and
crashed through the low-growing hazels, and came suddenly to a
horrified stand.

A little to the left of the path, between it and the stream, Mr.