They hurried here and there as they glimpsed red spots, only to find a leaf killed by the sun and fallen before season, or a bush reddened by berries.
"We miscalculated the spot," swore Simmons. "It wasn't here it happened."
And he sat down out of breath and leaned his burly back against the trunk of a giant sycamore tree.
The sun was dropping over the mountains when the two guards, empty-handed, got back to camp. The valleys lay in shadow, but far up in the enormous folds of the Tennessee mountains its last crimson rays shone on a bearded old man trudging along a narrow road toward the west.
He looked weary and footsore and his clothes were torn by briers. But his face was alight, as if with anticipation of to-morrow. Now and then he spoke. And behind him a great, strange-looking, long-eared hound lifted his head, as if drinking in the sound of his voice.
X
THE LITTLE BOY IN THE BLACKBERRY PATCH
Something strange was going on down there in the woods behind the barn. Little Tommy Earle was convinced of it as soon as he saw old Frank, Irish setter, come galloping across the cottonfields from that direction. For old Frank was excited, that was plain; and old Frank didn't get excited for nothing.