Alcander and is on his way to arrest."

"I know he is," affirmed the Cap'n. "Every time he sticks that old
tin badge on the outside of his coat he's on the war-path. Whip up,
Hiram!"

From afar they spied the tall figure of Dependence Crymble passing
wraithlike to and fro across the yard.

"Thirty days per sashay!" grunted Hiram. "That's the way they figger
it."

Batson Reeves would have scrambled down from the top of the woodpile
when he saw Cap'n Sproul halt Crymble in his weary labor and draw
him to one side. But Hiram suggested to Mr. Reeves that he better
stay up, and emphasized the suggestion by clutching a stick of
stove-wood in each hand.

"Crymble," huskily whispered the Cap'n, "I put ye here out of a good
meanin'--meanin' to keep ye out of trouble. But I'm afraid I've got
ye into it."

"I told ye what she was and all about it," complained Mr. Crymble,
bitterly.

"It ain't 'she,' it's--it's--" The Cap'n saw the bobbing head of
Nute's Dobbin heaving into sight around distant alders. "All is, you
needn't stay where I put ye."

Mr. Crymble promptly dropped the three sticks of wood that he was
carrying.

"But I don't want you to get too far off till I think this thing over
a little," resumed the Cap'n. "There ain't no time now. You ought
to know this old farm of your'n pretty well. You just go find a hole
and crawl into it for a while."

"I'll do it," declared Mr. Crymble, with alacrity. "I knew you'd find
her out. Now that you're with me, I'm with you. I'll hide. You fix
'em. 'Tend to her first." He grabbed the Cap'n by the arm. "There's
a secret about that barnyard that no one knows but me. Blind his
eyes!"

He pointed to Mr. Reeves. There was no time to delve into Mr.
Crymble's motives just then. There was just time to act. The blank
wall of the ell shut off Mrs. Crymble's view of the scene. Constable
Nute was still well down the road. There was only the basilisk Mr.
Reeves on the woodpile. Cap'n Sproul grabbed up a quilt spread to
air behind the ell, and with a word to Hiram as he passed him he
scrambled up the heap of wood. Hiram followed, and the next moment
they had hoodwinked the amazed Mr. Reeves and held him bagged
securely in the quilt.

The Cap'n, with chin over his shoulder, saw Mr. Crymble scuff aside
some frozen dirt in a corner of the barnyard, raise a plank with his
bony fingers and insert his slender figure into the crevice disclosed,
with all the suppleness of a snake. The pla