"Good-by, Cousin Maria," said each of the other men, as the party hurried away.
Cousin Maria did not answer a word. She sat right down on the door-step and took off her spectacles. She rubbed them with her apron, and then put them on again. But there was no mistake. There were the men. If she had seen four ghosts she could not have been more astonished.
Tony did not for a moment doubt Cousin Maria's word when she told him that George Mason had gone away. She never told a lie. The only trouble with her was that she told too much truth.
In about an hour and a half the five men returned to the place where they had left their horses. They had found no trace of George Mason.
When they reached the clump of trees, there were no horses there!
They looked at each other with blank faces!
"He's got our horses!" said Jim Anderson, when his consternation allowed him to speak.
"Yes," said Tony, "and sarved us right. We oughter left one man here to take care uv 'em, knowin' George Mason as we do.'
"I had an idea," said Dr. Price's son Brinsley, "that we should have done something of that kind."
"Idees ain't no good," said Tony with a grunt, as he marched off toward the blacksmith's shop at Jordan's cross-roads.