With a spring he was upon him. One hand gripped the fugitive's wrist. With a pull backward he had him on the ground. His foot pushed aside the eager jaws of Whitefoot and saved the man's life. Then he knelt stolidly on one arm, holding the other extended while he searched the man for arms in a swift professional manner. A knife and a pair of pistols were his booty. These he tossed aside and bade the dog keep guard over them.
"Now who are you and what are you doing here?" he demanded in a hoarse whisper in the fellow's ear. "Speak, man, if you have any wish to live."
The man kept silence, though he had given up struggling. But it was evident that he was not anxious to be recognized.
"This way, then," growled Stair, "and the worse for you if you have been out after any mischief."
He dragged the man roughly enough out upon the open surface of the snow, and knelt upon him, bringing his face close to that of his captive.
"Good God," he cried, forgetting his danger in his astonishment, "Eben the Spy!"
But the man lay limp in Stair's grasp. He appeared to have fainted. However, Stair knew a cure for that. He took a handful of the harsh half-melted sugar-loaf snow and rubbed the spy's face hard. Then he pulled him up into a sitting position.
"Come, Eben," he growled, "no malingering! I have no time to waste on you. If you do not get ready very quickly to do as I tell you, there is a chance that you will be found out here in the morning with an extra hole in your head which none of his Majesty's regimental surgeons will be able to plug—at least not in time to do you any good!"
"I ... am ... not what you think—indeed I am not," the man gasped, as he began to get his breath back after Stair's rough handling.