ght, "the house can't run away, that will be still
there when I come back, and I ought to find out who this big chap is and
where he comes from."

In spite of the apparent clumsiness of his build and the ungainliness of
his movements it was extraordinary how swiftly and how quietly he moved,
a shadow could scarcely have made less sound than this man did as he
melted through the darkness and a swift runner would have difficulty in
keeping pace with him.

An old labourer going home late bade the big man a friendly good night
and passed on without seeing or hearing Dunn following close behind,
and a solitary woman, watching at her cottage door, saw plainly the big
man's tall form and heard his firm and heavy steps and would have been
ready to swear no other passed that way at that time, though Dunn was
not five yards behind, slipping silently and swiftly by in the shelter
of the trees lining the road.

A little further beyond this cottage a path, reached by climbing a
stile, led from the high road first across an open field and then
through the heart of a wood that seemed to be of considerable extent.

The man Dunn was following crossed this stile and when he had gone a
yard or two along the path he halted abruptly, as though all at once
grown uneasy, and looked behind.

From where he stood any one following him across the stile must have
shown plainly visible against the sky line, but though he lingered for
a moment or two, and even, when he walked on, still looked back very
frequently, he saw nothing.

Yet Dunn, when his quarry paused and looked back like this, was only a
little distance behind, and when the other moved on Dunn was still very
near.

But he had not crossed the stile, for when he came to it he realised
that in climbing it his form would be plainly visible in outline for
some distance, and so instead, he had found and crawled through a gap in
the hedge not far away.

They came, Dunn so close and so noiseless behind his quarry he might
well have seemed the other's shadow, to the outskirts of the wood, and
as they entered it Dunn made his first fault, his first failure in an
exhibition of woodcraft that a North American Indian or an Australian
"black-fellow" might have equalled, but could not have surpassed.

For he trod heavily on a dry twig that snapped with a very loud, sharp
retort, clearly audible for some distance in the quiet night, and, as
dry twigs only snap like that under the pressure of