Yet two days later the deputy returned from his quest in the timber, shaking his head.
“I’m sorry,” he reported. “I’ve done my best, but it’s not been good enough.”
“What’s the trouble?” inquired Cappeze shortly, and the officer answered regretfully:
“This country is zigzagged and criss-crossed with watercourses—and water throws the dogs off. The fugitives probably made their way by wading wherever they could. The longest run we made was up toward Wolf Pen Branch.”
That was the direction, Spurrier silently reflected, of Sim Colby’s house, but he made no comment.
Brother Hawkins, who was leaving that afternoon, laid a kindly hand on Spurrier’s shoulder.
“Thet’s bad news,” he said. “But I kin give ye better. I kin almost give ye my gorrantee thet ther gal’s goin’ ter come through. Hit’s wantin’ ter live thet does hit.”
Spurrier’s eyes brightened out of the misery that had dulled them, and as to the failure of the chase he reassured himself with the thought that the dogs had started toward Sim Colby’s house, and that he himself could finish what they had begun.
Those tawny beasts had coursed at the behest of a master who was bound by the limitations of the law, but he, John Spurrier, was his own master and could deal less formally and more condignly with an enemy to whom suspicion pointed—and there was time enough.