Alf looked eagerly in the direction of the town as they emerged into the high road. He was hoping, almost against hope, that the rescuers might appear, even now, at the eleventh hour. But no one was in sight along the white snow road. Their driver turned the horse's head in the opposite direction, and with a sharp cut of the whip set the pace at a gallop.
"Whither art thou taking us?" asked Alf presently.
"After a while you will see," replied the man, with a brutal laugh.
"Be assured of one thing, thou hideous ruffian," said the boy indignantly, "that ere long thou and thy fellows shall smart for this. My father hath ever been a just and kind master to his workmen; and for this ill return they shall, without doubt, pay the price."
"Crow not so loud, my chicken!" sneered the man, his cruel red smile scorning to stretch all round his head. "Troublesome cockerels now and again get their necks twisted."
"The wicked old cocks always do," retorted the lad, nothing daunted; "and so, please God, shalt thou, too, one fine day; and the sooner the better for the rest of us!"
"Wait a bit, my fine young gentleman!" snarled the fellow over his shoulder. "Your turn will come presently. Hideous ruffian, am I? That makes one more thing to thank you for, you stuck-up young monkey!"
It was after three o'clock in the morning by Alf's watch when, in the middle of a pine forest, Red-scar pulled up the panting horse before the door of a rude shanty, a woodman's log hut, built of whole pines roughly trimmed with an axe, and with the crevices stuffed with moss and lichen.
Out of a chimney smoke curled upwards in fantastic shapes, and dispersed in the wintry sky.
"Get down," said Red-scar. He had scrambled out of the driver's narrow seat, and now threw back the furred apron that had protected his young passengers.