es the
borders of the village. The other night, when Madge made her escape, the
jail was filled with them."

"Oh," said the detective. "I begin to understand."

"Exactly."

"It was a put-up job on their part to get as many of their kind as
possible in the jail for that night, and then to take their queen out of
it; eh?"

"Precisely; and that is just what they did do. You see, the tramps began
coming in early in the day. They made intervals between the times of
their arrivals, and they appeared at different parts of the town, so
that before anybody realized it, the jail was about filled with them.
But they seemed not to know one another, and so the residents of the
town went peacefully to sleep that night, as usual."

"Well?"

"Well, in the morning when they woke up, the jail had been
gutted--literally gutted."

"In what sense do you mean?"

"In every sense."

"Tell me what you mean, please."

"I mean that all the tramps who had been locked up there overnight had
disappeared; that they had managed to break into the main part of the
jail, and that when they went away they took Black Madge with them; and
that before they went away they passed through the jail with axes and
smashed everything in sight. They tore down partitions, they smashed
doors, and where the doors could not be smashed, they destroyed the
locks. They tied up the jailer, and threatened to kill him--I regard it
as a wonder that they did not kill him."

"So do I. Go on."

"That is all there is to it. They went there, of course, with the
deliberate intention of rescuing Black Madge--and they did it."

"I suppose they must have taken to the woods north of the railway line;
eh?"

"You've guessed it, Carter."

"That is a wild country up through there, Mr. Cobalt."

"You bet it is. I used to go through there every fall on a hunting
expedition, when I was younger. The country hasn't changed much since
that time. It is as wild as if it were in an uncivilized country,
instead of being surrounded by----"

"I understand. Then you do know something about that country up through
there, eh?"

"Yes; I used to boast that I knew every inch of it; but, of course, that
wasn't quite so, you know."

"Yet you remember it fairly well?"

"I think so."

"Tell me something about it, for that is, I think, where I have got to
search for the woman we are after."

"There isn't much to tell about it, save that it is wild and uneven;
that the formation is