"All roads lead to Rome, but all don't lead to Sandy Flash, ha! ha!"
said another, laughing at his own smartness.

"Who knows where he was seen last?" Barton asked, but it was not easy to
get a coherent answer. One had heard one report, and another another; he
had been seen from the Street Road on the north all the way around
eastward by the Red Lion and the Anvil, and in the rocky glen below the
Barton farm, to the lime-quarries of Tuffkenamon on the west.

"Unless we scatter, it'll be like looking for a needle in a haystack,"
remarked one of the more courageous volunteers.

"If they'd all had spunk enough to come," said Barton, "we might ha'
made four parties, and gone out on each road. As it is, we're only
strong enough for two."

"Seven to one?--that's too much odds in Sandy's favor!" cried a
light-headed youth, whereat the others all laughed, and some of them
blushed a little.

Barton bit his lip, and with a withering glance at the young man,
replied,--"Then we'll make three parties, and you shall be the third."

Another quarter of an hour having elapsed, without any accession to the
troop, Barton reluctantly advised the men to get their arms, which had
been carelessly placed along the tavern-porch, and to mount for the
chase.

Just then Joe and Jake Fairthorn, who had been dodging back and forth
through the village, watching the roads, made their appearance with the