Ottley paused to release his weary team, and let them slake their thirst with the so-called water at their feet, which really was not all sulphur and sludge.
"I am not sure," he said compassionately, as he brought up the tired horses one after another, "that the poor animals have not had a worse time of it than we men; for their food and drink are gone, and it grieved me to see them dying by the wayside as I came."
The boys helped him to measure out the corn and hobble them for the night in the shelter of the valley.
Then Ottley looked around to ascertain the state of Mr. Lee's new fields. Three men were lingering by the site of the charcoal fires.
"There are the rabbiters," said Cuthbert, "just as usual!"
"Nonsense," returned his brother; "the gang is dispersed."
"Well, there they are," he persisted; and he was right.
They marched on steadily, as if they were taking their nightly round, but instead of the familiar traps, each one carried a young pig in his arms.
Pig-driving, as Pat does it at Ballyshannon fair, is a joke to pig-carrying when the pig is a wild one, born and reared in the bush. On they came with their living burdens, after a fashion which called forth the loudest merriment on the part of the watchers.
"Is Farmer Lee about again?" they asked, as they came up with the pack-horse train.