caped by ways unknownst he set out
ter race him down ter the Cohutty Mountings. But Tolhurst had j'ined the
main body o' the Federal Army, an' now Ackert is showing a clean pair o'
heels comin' back. But he be goin' ter take time ter raid the Cove--his
hurry will wait fur that! Somebody in Tanglefoot--the Lord only knows
who--showed Tolhurst that underground way out ter Greenbrier Cove,
through a sorter cave or tunnel in the mountings."

"Now--now--neighbor--_that's_ guesswork," remonstrated the miller, in
behalf of Tanglefoot Cove repudiating the responsibility. Perhaps the
semi-mercantile occupation of measuring toll sharpens the faculties
beyond natural endowments, and he began to perceive a certain connection
between cause and effect inimical to personal interest.

"Waal, that is the way they went, sartain sure," protested the
blacksmith. "I tracked 'em, the ground bein' moist, kase I wanted
ter view the marks o' their horses' hoofs. They hev got some powerful
triflin' blacksmiths in the army--farriers, they call 'em. I los' the
trail amongst the rocks an' ledges down todes the cave--though it's more
like one o' them tunnels we-uns used ter go through in the railroads in
the army, but this one was never made with hands; jes' hollowed out by
Sinking Creek. So I got Jube thar ter crope through, an' view ef thar
war any hoof marks on t'other side whar the cave opens out in Greenbrier
Cove."

"An' a body would think fur sure ez the armies o' hell had been
spewed out'n that black hole," said a lean man whom the glance of the
blacksmith had indicated as Jube, and who spoke in the intervals of
a racking cough that seemed as if it might dislocate his bones in its
violence. "Hoof marks hyar--hoof-marks thar--as if they didn't rightly
know which way ter go in the marshy ground 'bout Sinking Creek. But
at last they 'peared ter git tergether, an' off they tracked ter the
west----" A paroxysm of coughs intervened, and the attention of the
group failed to follow the words that they interspersed.

"They tuk a short cut through the Cove--they warn't in it a haffen
hour," stipulated the prudent miller. "They came an' went like a flash.
Nobody seen 'em 'cept the Brusies, kase they went by thar house--an' ef
they hed hed a guide, old Randal Brusie would hev named it."

"Ackert 'lows he'll hang the guide ef he ketches him," said the
blacksmith, in a tone of awe. "Leastwise that's the word that's 'goin'."

Poor Ethelinda! The clut