“An’ did you camp for the night?”
“No. At least I rested but one hour.”
“Then swallow some grub an’ make your mind easy. They won’t be here for some hours yet, for you’ve come on at a rate that no party of men could beat, I see that clear enough—unless they was mounted.”
“But a few of the chief men were mounted, Paul.”
“Pooh! that’s nothing. Chief men won’t come on without the or’nary men. It needs or’nary men, you know, to make chief ’uns. Ha! ha! Come, now, if you can’t hold your tongue, try to speak and eat at the same time.”
Thus encouraged, Fred set to work on some bread and cheese and coffee with all the gusto of a starving man, and, at broken intervals, blurted out all he knew and thought about the movements of the robber band, as well as his own journey and his parting with Brixton.
“’Tis a pity, an’ strange, too, that he was so obstinate,” observed Paul.
“But he thought he was right” said Betty; and then she blushed with vexation at having been led by impulse even to appear to justify her lover. But Paul took no notice.
“It matters not,” said he, “for it happens that you have found us almost on the wing, Westly. I knew full well that this fellow Buxley—”
“They call him Stalker, if you mean the robber chief” interrupted Fred.