He turned and started on the run in pursuit of the shouting crowd, whistling at the same time for the dog to follow him. But to his surprise Jim did not obey instantly. He was very busy digging under a big whitish stone at the other side of the pool. Blackstock halted.
“Jim,” he commanded angrily, “git out o’ that! What d’ye mean by foolin’ about after woodchucks a time like this? Come here!”
Jim lifted his head, his muzzle and paws loaded with fresh earth, and gazed at his master for a moment. Then, with evident reluctance, he obeyed. But he kept looking back over his shoulder at the big white stone, as if he hated to leave it.
“There’s a lot o’ ordinary pup left in that there dawg yet,” explained Blackstock apologetically to the game-warden.
“There ain’t a dawg ever lived that wouldn’t want to dig out a woodchuck,” answered Stephens.
III
The black-whiskered stranger had been overtaken by his pursuers about ten miles beyond Brine’s Rip, sleeping away the heat of the day under a spreading birch tree a few paces off the road. He was sleeping soundly—too soundly indeed, as thought the experienced constable, for a man with murder on his soul.
But when he was roughly aroused and seized, he seemed so terrified that his captors were all the more convinced of his guilt. He made no resistance as he was being hurried along the road, only clinging firmly to his black leather case, and glancing with wild eyes from side to side as if nerving himself to a desperate dash for liberty.
When he had gathered, however, a notion of what he was wanted for, to the astonishment of his captors, his terror seemed to subside—a fact which the constable noted narrowly. He steadied his voice enough to ask several questions about the murder—questions to which reply was curtly refused. Then he walked on in a stolid silence, the ruddy colour gradually returning to his face.
A couple of miles before reaching Brine’s Rip, the second search party came in sight, the Deputy Sheriff at the head of it and the shaggy black form of Jim close at his heels. With a savage curse Hawker sprang forward, and about half the party with him, as if to snatch the prisoner from his captors and take instant vengeance upon him.