etween the
hours of twelve and two," proposed Green, and the motion was put to vote
and carried without a dissenting voice.

"And let me have a hand in it!" cried Boyd, fiercely.

"You belong to the neighborhood and might be recognized," objected the
chief.

"I'll risk it. I owe him a sound flogging, or something worse," returned
Boyd.

"We all do, for he'd have every mother's son of us sent to jail or
hanged, if he could," growled another voice on Snell's right, while from
a mask on the left there came in sepulchral tones, the words, "It had
better be hands off with you then, man," the speaker pointing
significantly to Boyd's maimed member.

"It shall!" cried he, "but I flatter myself this right hand, mutilated
though it be, can lay on the lash as vigorously as yours, sir."

After a little more discussion, Boyd's wish was granted, his fellow
raiders were named, and presently the meeting was closed, and the
members began to disperse.

Snell thought he had escaped suspicion thus far, but his heart leaped
into his mouth as a man whom he had heard addressed as Jim Blake,
suddenly clapped his hand on his shoulder, exclaiming, "Ah, ha, I know
you, old chap!"

"You do? who am I then?" queried the spy in a feigned, unnatural voice,
steady and cool, spite of the terrible danger that menaced him.

"Who? Hal Williams, no disguise could hide you from me."

Snell drew a breath of relief. "Ha! ha! Jim, I didn't think you were so
cute," he returned in his feigned voice, and glided away presently
disappearing, as others were doing, in the deeper shadows of the wood.

He thought it not prudent to go directly to the spot where he had left
his horse, but reached it by a circuitous route, doffing his disguise
and rolling it into a bundle again as he went.

He paused a moment to recover breath and listen. All was darkness and
silence; the conspirators had left the vicinity.

Satisfied of this, he led his horse into the road, mounted and rode back
to the town.

There every one seemed to be asleep except in a drinking saloon, whence
came sounds of drunken revelry, and the bar room of the tavern where he
put up. A light was burning there, but he avoided it attended to his
horse himself, returning it to the precise spot where he had found it,
then slipped stealthily up to his room, and without undressing threw
himself upon the bed and almost immediately fell into a profound
slumber.

Chapter Seventeenth.

"Abate the