"Let 'em come!" exclaimed Snyder, slapping his hand round the muzzle of his gun. "This is the law of the land we'll read to them!"
After a time Jack and Sam, having heard all there was to hear, struck out on a line of their own. They followed the bank of the river until they came to woods, and then skirted the forest southward. This brought them at length to a wide trail with frozen wheel ruts. Down this road they went, passing occasional cabins, until they came to a crossroad where they found a man looking perplexedly about him, as if undecided which road to take.
"Where's Farmer Robins' place?" he asked. "The place that used to belong to Elijah Robins."
"We don't know," said Jack. "We're strangers here."
"There's a maple grove back of it," said the stranger, "that's all I know about it. I was told to stick to this road, but they didn't say nothing about any forks in it."
"This goes to Beaver Falls," said Sam, pointing to the one they had taken, "and that," he added, indicating the crossroad to the right of him, "would take you through thick woods to the river."
"I don't reckon it's either o' those roads then," said the man, and, bobbing his head at Sam, he stalked off to the left.
The two boys watched until the man was almost hidden by the trees. Then Jack turned to Sam. "You don't want to tell all you know to strangers," he said. "Make the other man tell you what he's up to first."
Sam's round face, not nearly so shrewd as the older boy's, looked perplexed. "Why shouldn't I tell him about those other roads?" he asked.
"Because I think he may be one of the Yorkers, and the less we tell them about the lay of the land round here the better."