"Hold on, Jacob. That's enough. Now, Peter, you see what's going on, and it's my opinion that some of Fenton's gang, and maybe Fenton himself, are in these very woods. That's why I advised ye not to go on. Now you can do jest as ye like, for you've got pretty much the whole story."
"I think you'll be all right," said Jacob. "It's only a little way up to the mill, and the children need that meal. I should go if I was in your place, and if I didn't have to keep watch here, I'd go with ye myself."
"I'll go," said Little Peter quietly.
"Good luck to ye, then," said Barzilla. "We'll see you here when you come back."
Little Peter picked up the reins and at once started, leaving the two men behind him, who remained standing in the road, and watched him until he disappeared from sight. The lad's feelings, however, had undergone a very decided change. He was convinced that the story concerning the aged Thomas Farr was true, and he was also persuaded that his suspicions of Jacob and Barzilla were unjust.
Every tree now might be the hiding-place of Fenton, or some of his band. Each moment he expected to see some one step forth into the road before him and stop his horses. The very silence in the woods served to increase his alarm. He quickened the speed of the horses, and soon they were wet with foam, as they toiled on through the heavy sand. The cry of a bird, or the chattering of a squirrel, caused the excited lad to glance fearfully in the direction from which the sound came. To his excited imagination the woods were filled with his enemies, and more than once a fallen tree or a broken branch took on the outlines of a man.
It was with a feeling of intense relief that at last he saw the crumbling old mill before him. The sound of the water, as it dropped from the dam to the bed of the brook below, was like music in his ears; and when he discovered the miller himself standing in the doorway, he again increased the speed of his horses, and soon halted before the mill.
"I've come for Benzeor Osburn's grist," he said, as he leaped from his seat to the ground.
"They must be pretty hungry over there, from the looks of your horses."
"They are. Has any one been here this morning?"