nd caught me by the arm. "Why the
devil--you'll excuse me, Miss Plinlimmon--but why on earth, child, if
you have news, couldn't you have told it at once? Blood on the
stile, you say? What stile?"

"The stile down the lane, sir," I answered, pointing. "And I
couldn't tell you before because you didn't give me time."

"Show us the way, quick! And you, Hosken, catch hold of the mare and
lead her round to Miss Belcher's stables. Or, stay--she's dead beat.
You can help me slip her out of the shafts and tether her by the gate
yonder. That's right, man; but don't tie her up too tight. Give her
room to bite a bit of grass, and she'll wait here quiet as a lamb."

"What about the prisoner, sir?" asked the stolid Hosken.

"D--n the prisoner!" answered Mr. Rogers, testily, in the act of
unharnessing. "Slip the handcuffs on him. And you, Miss Plinlimmon,
will return to the cottage, if you please."

"I'd like to come, too, if I may," put in Mr. Goodfellow.

"Eh?" Mr. Rogers, in the act of rolling up one of the traces, stared
at him with frank admiration. "Well, you're a sportsman, anyhow.
Catch hold of his arm, Hosken, and run him along with us. Yes, sir,
though I say it as a justice of the peace, be d--d to you, but I like
your spirit. And with the gallows staring you in the face, too!"

"Gallows? What gallows?" panted Mr. Goodfellow in my ear a few
moments later, as we tore in a body down the lane. "Hush!" I panted
in answer. "It's all a mistake."

"It ought to be." We drew up by the stile, where I pointed to the
smear of blood, and Mr. Rogers, calling to Hosken to follow him,
dashed into the coppice and down the path into the rank undergrowth.
I, too, was lifting a leg to throw it over the bar, when Mr.
Goodfellow plucked me by the arm. "Terribly hasty friends you keep
in these parts, Brooks," he said plaintively. "What's it all about?"

"Why, murder!" said I. "Haven't you heard, man?"

"Not a syllable! Good Lord, you don't mean--" He passed a shaky
hand over his forehead as a cry rang back to us through the coppice.

"Here, Hosken, this way! Oh, by the Almighty, be quick, man!"

I vaulted over the stile, Mr. Goodfellow close after me. For two
hundred yards and more--three hundred, maybe--we blundered and
crashed through the low-growing hazels, and came suddenly to a
horrified stand.

A little to the left of the path, between it and the stream, Mr.
Rogers and the constable knelt together ove