"Could you find them again, Dinsmore?"
"Yes, but I'd hev to be twice as keerful. It'd be all up with me if they was to see me."
"I will take care of that," replied Thayor briskly.
"What do ye mean?" stammered Dinsmore.
"I mean that you shall take me to them to-morrow."
"But I ain't goin' to let ye risk yer life if I—"
"I mean what I say, Dinsmore. I start at daylight."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Before sunrise the next morning two men were seen by a circling hawk moving steadily southeast. The man leading stopped now and then to glance carefully about him; in these pauses he studied the ground—often a weed trodden down in dew turned their course abruptly. After six miles of this careful back-tracing Dinsmore halted—this time to listen. Both could now faintly distinguish voices ahead.
"Keep straight on over that thar hemlock ridge," whispered the hide-out; "they're in the holler on t'other side." He held out his hand to Thayor, pointed again in the direction he had indicated, and disappeared as easily as a partridge.