be detained a day or two, in order to make depositions, or comply with
some unknown legal form. In the mean time the news would spread over the
country, no doubt with many exaggerations, and might possibly reach
Kennett--even the ears of his mother. That reflection decided his
course. She must first hear the truth from his mouth; he would try to
give her cheer and encouragement, though he felt none himself; then,
calling his friends together, he would hunt Sandy Flash like a wild
beast until they had tracked him to his lair.

"Unlucky weather for ye, it seems?" remarked the curious landlord, who,
seated in a corner of the fireplace, had for full ten minutes been
watching Gilbert's knitted brows, gloomy, brooding eyes, and compressed
lips.

"Weather?" he exclaimed, bitterly. "It's not the weather. Landlord, will
you have a chance of sending to Chester to-morrow?"

"I'm going, if it clears up," said one of the drovers.

"Then, my friend," Gilbert continued, "will you take a letter from me to
the Sheriff?"

"If it's nothing out of the way," the man replied.

"It's in the proper course of law--if there is any law to protect us.
Not a mile and a half from here, landlord, I have been waylaid and
robbed on the public road!"

There was a general exclamation of surprise, and Gilbert's story, which
he had suddenly decided to relate, in order that the people of the