on of my having committed felony to an
immense amount. But in this Gines had had no participation; he was
careless whether the supposition were true or false, and hated me as
much as if my innocence had been established beyond the reach of
suspicion.

The blood-hunters who had taken me into custody at ----, related, as
usual among their fraternity, a part of their adventure, and told of the
reason which inclined them to suppose, that the individual who had
passed through their custody, was the very Caleb Williams for whose
apprehension a reward had been offered of a hundred guineas. Gines,
whose acuteness was eminent in the way of his profession, by comparing
facts and dates, was induced to suspect in his own mind, that Caleb
Williams was the person he had hustled and wounded upon ---- forest.
Against that person he entertained the bitterest aversion. I had been
the innocent occasion of his being expelled with disgrace from Captain
Raymond's gang; and Gines, as I afterwards understood, was intimately
persuaded that there was no comparison between the liberal and manly
profession of a robber from which I had driven him, and the sordid and
mechanical occupation of a blood-hunter, to which he was obliged to
return. He no sooner received the information I have mentioned than he
vowed revenge. He determined to leave all other objects, and consecrate
every faculty of his mind to the unkennelling me from my hiding-place.
The offered reward, which his vanity made him consider as assuredly his
own, appeared as the complete indemnification of his labour and expense.
Thus I had to encounter the sagacity he possessed in the way of his
profession, whetted and stimulated by a sentiment of vengeance, in a
mind that knew no restraint from conscience or humanity.

When I drew to myself a picture of my situation soon after having fixed
on my present abode, I foolishly thought, as the unhappy are accustomed
to do, that my calamity would admit of no aggravation. The aggravation
which, unknown to me, at this time occurred was the most fearful that
any imagination could have devised. Nothing could have happened more
critically hostile to my future peace, than my fatal encounter with
Gines upon ---- forest. By this means, as it now appears, I had fastened
upon myself a second enemy, of that singular and dreadful sort that is
determined never to dismiss its animosity as long as life shall endure.
While Falkland was the hungry lion whose roari