of the most respectable
young farmers of the neighbourhood, who was running with the speed and
face of a man pursued by all the tigers of Bengal. A hundred yards
further on he heard yells and screams, and shouts of laughter; and
coming round a corner, he saw a small boy rolling in recurring
paroxysms of joy on the grass by the roadside, watched by a puzzled
bull-terrier. He had no difficulty in connecting them with the flying
farmer.

He came up to the absorbed pair unnoticed, and standing over them, said
quietly, "What's the joke, Tinker?"

Tinker sprang to his feet, and wiping away the joyful tears, said, "I
have been playing at hunting runaway slaves."

"Ah, Alloway was the slave?" said Sir Tancred.

"Yes, sir," said Tinker.

Sir Tancred dropped the subject; he knew by experience that the truth
might be painful hearing, and that he would probably hear it from
Tinker's flying partner in the game quite soon enough.

"What are you doing with that dog?" he said.

"I borrowed him," said Tinker.

Sir Tancred looked Blazer carefully over. "He's a very good dog," he
said. "How would you like him for a birthday present?"

Tinker's eyes shone as a long vista of scrapes, out of which Blazer's
teeth might help him, opened before his mind.

"Ever so much!" he said quickly.

"Come on, then, we'll go and try to buy him." And they set out for the
village.

Mr. Green stood in the door of the smithy, and grinned enormously at
the sight of the returning Tinker. Sir Tancred said, "Good-morning,
Green; do you care to sell this dog? I'll give you three pounds for
him."

Mr. Green said, "Three pound," and stared helplessly at the cottages
opposite, confused by the need to assimilate, on the spur of the
moment, a new idea.

"Three pounds?" said Tinker quickly. "Why, he only cost fifteen
shillings a year ago!"

"An orfer is an orfer!" said Mr. Green quickly, his wits spurred at the
sudden prospect of a lowering of the price. "And I takes it."

As he led away Blazer, with a new proprietary pride Tinker said firmly
to Sir Tancred, "I shall go on considering him a bloodhound, sir."

CHAPTER SIX

THE RESCUE OF ELIZABETH KERNABY

Sir Tancred paused now and again in his leisurely breakfast to scowl
across the dining room at Mr. Biggleswade, who, with his sour-looking
wife and woebegone little girl, was breakfasting at an opposite table.
The Royal Victoria Hotel was second-rate. The cooking was poor, the
w