d, which truly was
not much. But I promised for my father, whose arm was long in
Breckonside, reaching even to East Dene. But the poacher shook his
head.

"They will get poor Davie. They will put it on him--yes, for sure!" he
repeated. And from this melancholy conclusion he was not to be moved.
He offered to accompany us, however, on our search. And we were glad
of that, because we were quite sure of his innocence, and in such a
case the difference between three and two is very marked. Two--you
want to get close and rub shoulders. Three--you scatter and look the
hedges.

We advised the old poacher to hide his fish under the bank, but, with
strong good sense, he refused.

"They are Davie's only chance," he said, "there is just a possibility
that there's an _aw-li-bi_ in Davie's basket. He has catched so many
of the Duke's trouts since three this morning that they may think he
could not have had the time to make away with a man as well!"

As we went he told us how the post carrier had got his mail bags from
Miss Harbishaw, the postmistress, on the stroke of three that
morning--"a fearful sight in a mustard-coloured flannel dressing
gown"--Davie described her. He himself had stood on the other side of
the mail cart, well in the shadow.

"Did Miss Harbishaw see you?" Elsie asked.

"Well," said the poacher, "I would not just make so bold as to say.
She might have seen my legs, mixed up with Bess's piebald stockings.
But I keeped fairly quiet, not wanting her to spot the fishing basket
on my back."

Davie was not stupid, and he saw clearly enough that it was the best
thing he could do if Harry Foster were really dead, to go and help look
for his murderer. So he came along with us, telling us of the talk he
had had with the carrier in his cart.

"I was telling stories, and we were wonderful merry!" he admitted.

"How far did you go with him?" we asked.

"To where the road dives into the wood like a rabbit!" he answered.
"Here!" he cried, suddenly throwing up his hand.

And there, plain enough to be seen, were the marks of Davie's boot
heels as he had leaped upon the bank from the post gig.

"Then I crossed the dyke and went down to the waterside."

From that point, as you may suppose, we followed carefully the marks of
the wheels. The pony had been going no faster than a walk. The tracks
were deeply impressed, and as it was damper under the trees, you could
even see where Piebald Bess had been spar