"Ah!" exclaimed Neil, drawing back with a deep breath. "I thought they would do it!"
"The bloodhounds!"
Horror, not fear, sent an involuntary shiver through Nathaniel.
"They can't reach us!" assured Neil. There was the glitter of triumph in his eyes. "This was to have been my way of escape after I killed Strang. A quarter of a mile deeper in the swamp I have a canoe." He picked up the gun and box and began forcing his way through the dense alder along the edge of the stream. "I'd like to stay and murder those dogs," he called back, "but it wouldn't be policy."
For a time the crashing of their bodies through the dense growth of the swamp drowned all other sound. Five minutes later Neil stopped on the edge of a wide bog. The hounds were giving fierce tongue in the forest on their left and their nearness sent Nathaniel's hand to his pistol. Neil saw the movement and laughed.
"Don't like the sound, eh?" he said. "We get used to it on Beaver Island. They're just about at the place where they tore little Jim Schredder to pieces a few weeks back. Schredder tried to kill one of the elders for stealing his wife while he was away on a night's fishing trip."
He plunged to his knees in the bog.
"They caught him just before he reached the swamp," he flung back over his shoulder. "Two minutes more and he would have been safe."
Nathaniel, sinking to his knees in the mire, forged up beside him.
"Lord!" he exclaimed, as a breath of air brought a sudden burst of blood-curdling cries to them. "If they'd loosed them on us sooner—"