ere Dan'l lay in the straw; and
there by lantern-light the old man did his job very composedly.

"You're not altogether a pair of fools," said he, speaking for the first
time as he tied the last bandage. "If you hadn't fetched someone, this
man would have been dead in three days from now. But you're fools enough
if you think I'm going to take this jaunt every night for a week and
more--as someone must, if Dan'l's to recover; and you're bigger fools if
you imagine I don't know the inside of Stack's Folly. My advice is that
in future you save yourselves trouble and call up my assistant from St.
Ives; and further, that you don't try his temper with any silly
blindfolding, but trust him for the gentleman and good sportsman I know
him to be. If 'tis any help to you, he'll be stepping over to Penzance
to-day on business, and I'll take the opportunity to drop him a hint of
warning."

They thanked him, of course. "And sorry we are, doctor," said Tummels,
"to have put you to this inconvenience. But there's no friend like an old
friend."

"Talking of friends," answered Dr. Chegwidden, "I think it well to set you
on your guard." He pulled out a handbill from his pocket. "I had this
from Mr. Pennefather to-night," said he; "and by to-morrow it will be
posted all over the country: an offer for the apprehension of Daniel
Leggo; the reward, two hundred and fifty pounds."

"Two hundred and fifty pounds!" Weak as he was, Dan'l sat upright in the
straw, and the other two stared at the doctor with their jaws dropping--
which Dan'l's jaw couldn't, by reason of the bandages.

"And you ask us to trust this young furriner, with two hundred and fifty
pounds for his hand to close on!" groaned Tummels.

"I do," said the doctor. "The man I would warn you against is a man you'd
be ten times apter to trust; and that is your partner, Deiphobus Geen.
I understand he's away from home just now; but--reward or no reward--when
he returns I advise you to watch that fellow closer than any of the
Preventive men: for to my certain knowledge he had ample warning of what
was to happen, and I leave you to judge if 'twas by accident he let his
friend Dan'l, here, run into the trap."

Tummels made a motion to draw out a musket from under the straw where
Dan'l lay. "If I thought that," he growled, "I'd walk straight over to
Porthleah, wait for him, and blow his scheming brains out."

"You'd be a bigger fool, then, than I take ye for," answered