“All right here.”
“Put out your light, Axel.”
They stepped cautiously outside, and the boy locked the door behind them. “Hold on,” he whispered; “don't go around that way. Pa ain't asleep, never in the world!”
“Which way shall we go?”
“Here—after me—through the cow-yard.” They slipped around behind the barn, made a short detour through the edge of the forest, and reached the road beyond the house.
“Does this road run both ways, Axel?” Beveridge asked.
“Yes, from Hewittson to Ramsey.”
“Do you hear that, Smiley? We must have been within a few hundred yards of it most of the way.”
“Never mind, we 'll make better time now, anyhow.”
They pushed on, indeed, rapidly for half a mile, guided by the lantern, which Axel had relighted. Then the boy, overcome by the tobacco, had to be left, miserably sick, in a heap by the roadside. Beveridge snatched the lantern from his heedless fingers, thrust a bill into his pocket by way of payment, and the party pushed on.