ere plainly visible and did not look like country people, for
the hill farmers and shepherds walk with a curious gait. Foster
crouched down and waited, knowing he would get a useful hint when they
reached the spot he had left. They stopped and one picked up the
newspaper, while his companion bent down and got up with something in
his hand. Foster, seeing that the fellow had found the matches,
wondered whether he had made the trail too plain. If they suspected
the trick, they would know he was not far off and search for him.

He could not distinguish their faces and regretted this, because it
would have been useful to know the men again, and when they began to
talk their voices were too low for him to hear what they said.
Presently one left the road on the opposite side to the stream and
climbed the bank, on which he stood as if he wished to look across the
moor. The other walked along the edge of the grass with his head bent,
but Foster thought it was too dark to see any footprints he might have
left. The fellow came on a few yards towards the stream, and then
stood still while Foster tried to study him, but could only distinguish
his face as a white oval in the gathering dark.

He was anxious and puzzled, because he did not know whether the men
wanted him or Lawrence. The nearer of them would, no doubt, see him if
he crossed the burn, but Foster thought he might seize and put the
fellow out of action before the other came up. This, however, would be
risky, and since he did not know their intentions he was not sure he
would gain much if he came off victor. To his relief, the man went
back and joined his companion in the road, where they stood looking
about, and then set off rapidly down hill as if they had decided to go
on to Jedburgh.

When their footsteps died away Foster turned back along the hedge and
struck across the moor in the dark. It would be better to avoid
Jedburgh, and he must try to find the house that Pete had told him of.
He had some trouble in doing so and on the way fell into a bog, but at
length a light blinked on a hillside and he came to a small building,
sheltered by a few stunted ash trees. A shed thatched with heather and
a rough stone byre stood near the house, and a big peat-stack filled
one end of a miry yard. A dog ran out and circled around Foster,
barking, until an old man with a lantern drove it off and asked what he
wanted.

Foster said he wanted shelter for the night and