"That was rather clever," Ned mused, "taking the boy while at the cave of the counterfeiters in order to give the impression that the coiners had seized him!"
Ned realized, too; that the capture of the grandson just at that time had been a master stroke on the part of the conspirators. The lad would have talked too much when he became satisfied that he was safe from all coercion.
Ned lay in his hiding place for what appeared to him to be a long time before he heard anything to indicate that his man-trap had been set in the right spot. Then the voice he heard caused him to spring quickly up to his feet. It was the low, soft, plaintive voice of Mary Brady.
"I haven't seen anything here I could talk about," the old lady was saying. "I wouldn't think of betraying anyone who put my boy in my arms. I've seen him with you—I've been waiting about here for a long time. Bring him out to me and I'll go home and never trouble you any more."
"Now," thought Ned, "how did the old lady manage to find the boy here?"
"You shouldn't have come here," a low, well-modulated masculine voice said. "You have put your own life and the life of the boy in danger by so doing. How long had you been watching and listening before I saw you?"
"A long, long time."
"And you heard much of what was said?"
"I heard a good many words, but I don't remember now what they meant."
The voices came clearly from farther up the slope, and a little to the south. The figures of the speakers could not be seen by the watcher.