With that awful thought filling his heart, the wretch crouched behind the bushes and ran quickly back along the ridge, passing over it and disappearing.
Hidden from view, he ran as swiftly as he could back along the course of the road down which the baseball men had come. Pretty soon the ridge sunk and he was in a piece of thin timber, through which he pressed till he came to the road itself.
He halted amid some trees to let several men pass, and then he sprang out into the road and started along in the same direction as if he had been in the procession all the time.
“Now let any one prove that I did it!” he laughed to himself. “I took nobody into my confidence, and there is no proof against me. It’s a job well done.”
As he approached the spot he was not surprised to find the men ahead of him had stopped and were gathered in a group.
“They’ll take him in on a stretcher,” thought Defarge.
He came up, breathing heavily, as if he had been running all the while.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, as he approached. “Anybody hurt?”
“Hello, Defarge,” said one of the men. “You’ve made good time to-day. You’re usually a tail-ender.”
“Anybody hurt?” persisted Bertrand, coming up and stopping. “What has happened[happened]?”