The constable nodded.
“Oh, he won’t be escaped long, Miss Weston. There’s some very smart men lookin’ for him. Of course there’ll be a search out your way, but I was just wondering if you’d seen anyone suspicious. Well, not as he looks suspicious; I believe he’s rather a nice-lookin’ young feller. P’raps, if he’d looked more like a criminal the chap in charge of him would ’a’ been more suspicious himself, instead of bein’ caught nappin’. I bet he’s pretty sorry now. Well, it’s a lesson to us!”
“I suppose so,” said Jo, feeling rather sorry for future “prisoners and captives.” “Have you any idea which way he went?”
“Well, he’s given us the slip altogether at present,” admitted the policeman. “Oh, we’ll get him, right enough. Well, you keep your eyes open, Miss Weston—a delicate-lookin’ feller in a grey suit. Did you come by the road this morning?”
“No—through the paddocks, and across the Common.”
“You’d ’a’ been more likely to see him there—he won’t be troublin’ the highroads much,” said the constable. “Oh, well, good afternoon, Miss Weston.” He smiled between them and strode off, his chest well out, and his step martial; and the twins, themselves feeling a little important, went in search of their ponies, and rode out of the township.
At first they were on the alert to scan every unfamiliar face—not that unfamiliar faces were plentiful in Barrabri, where the twins knew everybody. They were like a person who, having encountered a snake, sees one in every bush. Twice they turned down cross-roads in pursuit of a suspicious figure: the first turning out to be a grizzled rabbiter, and the second, Tom Holmes, who, covered with dust, was returning from a long afternoon spent fruitlessly as a sleuth-hound. Tom’s return to school had been delayed, owing to an untimely attack of chicken-pox; an undignified disease, which had caused him bitter shame. His period of quarantine had almost expired, and he was off on Monday, he explained; it would have been some set-off to a fool complaint like chicken-pox if he could have captured a criminal off his own bat!
“But I had my usual luck,” he said wrathfully. “Never saw a sign of him all the afternoon, and finished up by letting my horse get a box-thorn in his fetlock! He’s dead lame, and I’ve had to leave him at the stables. Tried to get a horse in the township, and couldn’t, so I’ve got to walk home!”
“Teach you to let poor prisoners alone!” said Jean unsympathetically. “Why do you want to hunt the poor fellow down?”
Tom stared.