he bridle, passed a few anxious moments;
a movement of his horse might betray him. The troopers, however, drew
abreast without glancing toward him and the tension slackened as they
slowly moved away. What they expected to find he could not tell, but he
was on the whole pleased to see them hanging round the bluff. He waited a
while after the faint sound they had made died away; and then, tying his
horse to a branch, he crept quietly into the bluff.

There were belts of shadow among the trees; he got entangled among nut
bushes and thickets, but creeping on toward the house, he reached a more
open space and found a hollow nearly filled with withered leaves. There
he stopped, wondering whether it would be safe to strike a match; but he
knew that something must be risked and he got a light and bent down,
shielding it with his hands. The leaves lay thickly together, a foot or
two in depth, and the place looked suitable for his purpose.

A stream of light suddenly broke out from the door of the homestead and
Wandle's hand closed quickly on the match; somebody was crossing from the
house to the stable with a lantern. He could see the man's dark figure
plainly, though he could not recognize him, and he waited until a door
was noisily opened. Then he scraped the leaves aside and laid the brown
clothes in the hollow. He stayed beside it until the man with the lantern
returned to the house, and then he crept back through the bluff and led
his horse toward its end, where he mounted and rode to the next farm.
After spending an hour with its owner, arranging for a journey to a bluff
where unusually large logs could be found, he rode home content.
Everything had gone as he wished; there would, he thought, be snow enough
before morning to cover any tracks he had left, and he could, if
necessary, account for his having been in the neighborhood of the
Prescott farm.

During the next week, Wandle watched the weather, which continued fine
after a few snow showers. A heavy fall might hide the clothes until
spring, but he could think of no means of leading up to their discovery.
To give the police a hint would fix their suspicions on himself, and he
wondered how one could be conveyed to them indirectly. Chance provided
him with an opportunity.

Gertrude Jernyngham borrowed Leslie's team one afternoon and set out for
a drive. Troubled as she was, she had of late found the strain of
maintaining a tranquil demeanor before her friends growing