“We trailed you down stream to the cañon, where we found blood upon the rocks. Here we were at fault, when a handsome, delicate-looking lad, known somehow or other to your Jack, came up and carried us to the crossing above, where the lad gave us the slip, and we saw no more of him. We struck the hoofs again where he left us, and followed them to a small prairie on the edge of the woods, where the ground was strangely broken and trampled. There they had turned back, and we lost all trace.”
“But how, then, did you come here?”
“By accident altogether. We were striking to the nearest point on the National Road when that tall sergeant of yours dropped down upon us out of the branches of a tree.”
“Whom did you see, Jack?” I whispered to the boy, after having drawn him aside.
“I saw them all, Captain.”
“Well?”
“They asked where you were, and when I told them—”
“Well—well!”
“They appeared to wonder—”
“Well?”