APTER XVIII

THE HUNTERS OF MEN

In the village of Breckonside on that December morning was to be seen a
sight the like of which I never looked upon. Doors were open all up
and down the street. Every window was a yellow square of light.
Frighted, white-faced women looked round curtains. Children in their
scanty nightgowns clung on to stair rails, and tried to look out of the
open front door without taking their feet off the first-floor landing.

The men of the village mustered about the police office--not because of
any help poor old Constable Codling could be to them, but because the
very place gave a kind of legality to their proposed doings.

For this time there was no doubt in the minds of any at Breckonside.
Harry Foster was a comparatively poor man, even taking into
consideration the banknotes which he carried in the mail bags. But my
father, Joseph Yarrow, was the richest and most powerful man in all the
district--ay, as far down as East Dene itself.

More than that, he had ridden to Longtown to take payment of a long
outstanding debt. Bob Kingsman had heard him say so--so, for the
matter of that, had I myself. It would certainly be a large sum for
him to mention it twice, reticent as he was on all such matters.

The road to Longtown, or back from Longtown--for it was doubtless there
that he would be trapped--led over Brom Common, by the edge of Sparhawk
Wood, and so on through the Slack into Scotland. On all the long road,
there was only one suspected house--Deep Moat Grange. Only one man
whose wealth could not be accounted for penny by penny--Mr. Stennis,
the Golden Farmer. Only one nest of mysterious and dangerous folk--Mad
Jeremy and his sisters. All the rest were shepherds and their little
white shielings.

The conclusion was clear--at least to the minds of the
Breckonsiders--in, at, or about Deep Moat Grange, Joseph Yarrow,
senior, was to be found--and, what was even more to the point, Joseph
Yarrow's money.

The conclusion was, they would go in a body to Deep Moat Grange. Our
registrar, Waldron, who was great on the instinct of animals, tried to
get Dapple to retrace her steps. She was led out into the yard, and
instantly retraced them into the stable.

At the Bridge End there was a halt. The heads of our Breckonsiders
were no ways strong. Besides they were dazed with the sudden alarm.

The memory of poor Harry, the strange tales they had heard for the last
ten years of vanished d