The other members of the party had crowded in from the porch, where they had been sitting since dinner, smoking their pipes. The officer, realizing his lapse of vigilance and the loss of his opportunity, was sharply conscious, too, of their appreciation of his fatuity.
'Whar did ye see him?' he asked.
'I seen him hyar—this mornin'.' There was a stir of excitement in the group. 'He kem by on his beastis whilst I war a-ploughin', an' we talked a passel. An' then he tuk Pete's plough, ez war idle in the turn-row, an' helped along some; he run a few furrows.'
'Which way did he go?' asked the sheriff breathlessly.
'I dunno,' faltered the girl.
'Look-a-hyar!' he thundered, in rising wrath. 'Ye'll find yerself under lock an' key in the jail at Shaftesville, if ye undertake ter fool with me. Which way did he go?'
A flush sprang into the girl's excited face. Her eyes flashed.
'Ef ye kin jail me fur tellin' all I know, I can't holp it,' she said, with spirit. 'I kin tell no more.'
He saw the justice of her position. It did not make the situation easier for him. Here he had sat eating and drinking and idly talking, while the fugitive, who had escaped by a hair's-breadth, was counting miles and miles between himself and his lax pursuer. This would be heard of in Shaftesville—and he a candidate for re-election! He beheld already an exchange of significant glances among his posse. Had he asked that simple question earlier he might now be on his way back to Shaftesville, his prisoner braceleted with the idle handcuffs that jingled in his pocket as he moved.
He caught at every illusive vagary that might promise to retrieve his error. He declared that she could not say which way Rick Tyler had taken because he was not gone.