I'd not wait a minute, or if I could recognize the man
whenst I viewed him. The constable promised to send a fellow to meet me
here,--what's his name?--yes, Smith, Barton Smith,--who will guide us to
where he was last glimpsed. I hope to take him alive," he added with an
inflection of doubt.

Certainly this was a dreary camp-hunt, with all its distasteful
sequelae. Purcell, who had no more imagination than a promissory note,
silently sulked under the officer's intimation that, being able-bodied
men, he would expect the hunters also to ride with him. They were not of
his county, and doubted their obligation, but they would not refuse to
aid the law. Bygrave, however, realized a "story" in the air, and
Seymour was interested in the impending developments; for being a close
observer, he had perceived that the girl was in the clutch of some
tumultuous though covert agitation. Her blood blazed at fever-heat in
her cheeks; her eyes were on fire; every muscle was tense; and her brain
whirled. To her the crisis was tremendous. This was the result of her
unwarranted interference. Who was she, indeed, that she should seek to
command the march of events and deploy sequences? Her foolish
manoeuvering had lured this innocent man to ruin, capture, anguish,
and death. No warning could he have; the window was opaque with the
corrugations of the rain-fall on the streaming panes, and set too high
to afford him a glimpse from without. And, oh, how he would despise the
traitor that she must needs seem to be! She had not a moment for
reflection, for counsel, for action. Already the signal,--he was prompt
at the tryst,--the sharp, crystalline vibration of the tap on the glass!

The sheriff rose instantly with that cumbrous agility sometimes
characterizing portly men. "There he is now!" he exclaimed.

But Meddy, with a little hysterical cry, had sprung first to the opening
door. "Barton Smith!" she exclaimed, with shrill significance. "Hyar is
yer guide, Sher'ff, wet ez a drownded rat."

The pale face in the dark aperture of the doorway, as the fire-light
flashed on it, grew ghastly white with terror and lean with amazement.
For a moment the man seemed petrified. Seymour, vaguely fumbling with
his suspicions, began to disintegrate the plot of the play, and to
discriminate the powers of the dramatis personae.

"Now, my man, step lively," said the officer in his big, husky voice.
"Do you know this Royston McGurny?"

To be sure, Seymour ha