ks swerved again into the bushes.

"He's goin' to wait till daylight, fer fear somebody's follered him.
He'll come in back o' Devil Judd's."

"How do you know he's going to Devil Judd's?" asked Hale.

"Whar else would he go?" asked the Falin with a sweep of his arm toward
the moonlit wilderness. "Thar ain't but one house that way fer ten
miles--and nobody lives thar."

"How do you know that he's going to any house?" asked Hale impatiently.
"He may be getting out of the mountains."

"D'you ever know a feller to leave these mountains jus' because he'd
killed a man? How'd you foller him at night? How'd you ever ketch him
with his start? What'd he turn that way fer, if he wasn't goin' to
Judd's--why d'n't he keep on down the river? If he's gone, he's gone. If
he ain't, he'll be at Devil Judd's at daybreak if he ain't thar now."

"What do you want to do?"

"Go on down with the hosses, hide 'em in the bushes an' wait."

"Maybe he's already heard us coming down the mountain."

"That's the only thing I'm afeerd of," said the Falin calmly. "But whut
I'm tellin' you's our only chance."

"How do you know he won't hear us going down? Why not leave the horses?"

"We might need the hosses, and hit's mud and sand all the way--you ought
to know that."

Hale did know that; so on they went quietly and hid their horses aside
from the road near the place where Hale had fished when he first went to
Lonesome Cove. There the Falin disappeared on foot.

"Do you trust him?" asked Hale, turning to Budd, and Budd laughed.

"I reckon you can trust a Falin against a friend of a Tolliver, or
t'other way round--any time." Within half an hour the Falin came back
with the news that there were no signs that the fugitive had yet come
in.

"No use surrounding the house now," he said, "he might see one of us
first when he comes in an' git away. We'll do that atter daylight."

And at daylight they saw the fugitive ride out of the woods at the back
of the house and boldly around to the front of the house, where he left
his horse in the yard and disappeared.

"Now send three men to ketch him if he runs out the back way--quick!"
said the Falin. "Hit'll take 'em twenty minutes to git thar through the
woods. Soon's they git thar, let one of 'em shoot his pistol off an'
that'll be the signal fer us."

The three men started swiftly, but the pistol shot came before they had
gone a hundred yards, for one of the three--a new man and unaccustomed