esters, and every foreign thought in
his brain passed like breath from a window pane, while his dark, thin
face whitened a little with anxiety and wonder. Swiftly he stepped
backward, keeping the bushes between him and his far-away enemies.
Another knot he gave the reins around the sassafras bush and then,
Winchester in hand, he dropped noiseless as an Indian, from rock to
rock, tree to tree, down the sheer spur on the other side. Twenty
minutes later, he lay behind a bush that was sheltered by the top
boulder of the rocky point under which the road ran. His enemies were in
their own country; they would probably be talking over the happenings in
town that day, and from them he would learn what was going on.

So long he lay that he got tired and out of patience, and he was about
to creep around the boulder, when the clink of a horseshoe against
a stone told him they were coming, and he flattened to the earth and
closed his eyes that his ears might be more keen. The Falins were riding
silently, but as the first two passed under him, one said:

"I'd like to know who the hell warned 'em!"

"Whar's the Red Fox?" was the significant answer.

The boy's heart leaped. There had been deviltry abroad, but his kinsmen
had escaped. No one uttered a word as they rode two by two, under him,
but one voice came back to him as they turned the point.

"I wonder if the other boys ketched young Dave?" He could not catch the
answer to that--only the oath that was in it, and when the sound of the
horses' hoofs died away, he turned over on his back and stared up at the
sky. Some trouble had come and through his own caution, and the mercy
of Providence that had kept him away from the Gap, he had had his escape
from death that day. He would tempt that Providence no more, even by
climbing back to his horse in the waning light, and it was not until
dusk had fallen that he was leading the beast down the spur and into a
ravine that sank to the road. There he waited an hour, and when another
horseman passed he still waited a while. Cautiously then, with ears
alert, eyes straining through the darkness and Winchester ready, he went
down the road at a slow walk. There was a light in the first house, but
the front door was closed and the road was deep with sand, as he knew;
so he passed noiselessly. At the second house, light streamed through
the open door; he could hear talking on the porch and he halted. He
could neither cross the river nor get aro