boy he saw pass about a turn in the road were the man and boy he
had been following for a month.

He was not mistaken. The man was Bob Yancy and the boy was
Hannibal. Yancy had acted with extraordinary decision. He had
sold his few acres at Scratch Hill for a lump sum to Crenshaw--it
was to the latter's credit that the transaction was one in which
he could feel no real pride as a man of business--and just a day
later Yancy and the boy had quitted Scratch Hill in the gray
dawn, and turned their faces westward. Tennessee had become
their objective point, since here was a region to which they
could fix a name, while the rest of the world was strange to
them. As they passed the turn in the road where Murrell had
caught his first sight of them, Yancy glanced back at the blue
wall of the mountains where it lay along the horizon.

"Well, Nevvy," he said, "we've put a heap of distance between us
and old Scratch Hill; all I can say is, if there's as much the
other side of the Hill as there is this side, the world's a
monstrous big place fo' to ramble about in." He carried his
rifle and a heavy pack. Hannibal had a much smaller pack and his
old sporting rifle, burdens of which his Uncle Bob relieved him
at brief intervals.

For the past ten days their journey had been conducted in a
leisurely fashion. As Yancy said, they were seeing the world,
and it was well to take a good look at it while they had a
chance. He was no longer fearful of pursuit and his temperament
asserted itself--the minimum of activity sufficed. Usually they
camped just where the night overtook them; now and then they