the country, to be wicked enough to do anything.

At a little place called Jordan's cross-roads, they were sure they had
come upon him. Tom Riley's horse was found at the blacksmith's shop at
the cross-roads, and the blacksmith said that he had been left there to
have a shoe put on, and that the man who had ridden him had gone on over
the fields toward a house on the edge of the woods, about a mile away.

So Tony and his men rode up to within a half-mile of the house, and then
they dismounted, tied their horses, and proceeded on foot. They kept, as
far as possible, under cover of the tall weeds and bushes, and hurried
along silently and in single file, Tony in the lead. Thus they soon
reached the house, when they quietly surrounded it.

But George Mason played them a pretty trick.




CHAPTER XIII.

COUSIN MARIA.


After posting one of his men on each side of the house, which stood on
the edge of a field, without any fence around it, Tony Kirk stepped up
to the front door and knocked. The door was quickly opened by a woman.

"Why, Cousin Maria," said Tony, "is this you?"