breakfast. But here comes Mike."

At this juncture Lynch was seen emerging from the wood, mounted on a
rough, untrimmed pony, which he was urging forward under repeated blows
with his stick. The little animal was covered with foam; and, from his
travel-worn plight, gave evidence of having been taxed to the utmost of
his strength in a severe journey. At some hundred paces distant, the
rider detected the presence of Adair and his companion, and came to a
sudden halt. He appeared to deliberate as if with a purpose to escape
their notice; but finding that he was already observed by them, he put
his horse again in motion, advancing only at a slow walk. Adair hastily
quitted Robinson, and, walking forward until he met Lynch, turned about
and accompanied him along the road, conversing during this interval in
a key too low to be heard by the sergeant.

"Here's Horse Shoe thrusting his head into our affairs. Conjure a lie
quickly about your being at the blacksmith's; I told him you were there
to hear the news."

"Aye, aye! I understand."

"You saw Hugh?"

"Yes. The gang will be at their post."

"Hush! Be merry; laugh and have a joke--Horse Shoe is very suspicious."

"You have ridden the crop-ear like a stolen horse," continued Adair, as
soon as he found himself within the sergeant's hearing. "See what a
flurry you have put the dumb beast in. If it had been your own nag, Mike
Lynch, I warrant you would have been more tedious with him."

"The crop-ear is not worth the devil's fetching, Wat. He is as lazy as a
land-turtle, and too obstinate for any good-tempered man's patience.
Look at that stick--I have split it into a broom on the beast."

"You look more like a man at the end of the day than at the beginning of
it," said Robinson. "How far had you to ride, Michael?"

"Only over here to the shop of Billy Watson, in the Buzzard's nest,"
replied Lynch, "which isn't above three miles at the farthest. My saw
wanted setting, so I thought I'd make an early job of it, but this beast
is so cursed dull I have been good three-quarters of an hour since I
left the smith's."

"What news do you bring?" inquired Adair.

"Oh, none worth telling again. That cross-grained, contrary,
rough-and-tumble bear gouger, old Hide-and-Seek, went down yesterday
with the last squad of Ferguson's new draughts."

"Wild Tom Eskridge," said Wat Adair. "You knowed him, Horse Shoe, a
superfluous imp of Satan!" continued the woodman, laying a particula