ticular friendship
shown by Miss Boyce to the Hurds. He was goaded into trying a more
stinging topic.

"Westall wor braggin' last night at Bradsell's"--(Bradsell was the
landlord of "The Green Man" at Mellor)--"ee said as how they'd taken you
on at the Court--but that didn't prevent 'em knowin' as you was a bad
lot. Ee said _ee_ 'ad 'is eye on yer--ee 'ad warned yer twoice last
year--"

"That's a lie!" said Hurd, removing his pipe an instant and putting it
back again.

Patton looked more cheerful.

"Well, ee spoke cru'l. Ee was certain, ee said, as you could tell a
thing or two about them coverts at Tudley End, if the treuth were known.
You wor allus a loafer, an' a loafer you'd be. Yer might go snivellin'
to Miss Boyce, ee said, but yer wouldn't do no honest work--ee said--not
if yer could help it--that's what ee said."

"Devil!" said Hurd between his teeth, with a quick lift of all his great
misshapen chest. He took his pipe out of his mouth, rammed it down
fiercely with his thumb, and put it in his pocket.

"Look out!" exclaimed Patton with a start.

A whistle!--clear and distinct--from the opposite side of the hollow.
Then a man's figure, black and motionless an instant on the whitened
down, with a black speck beside it; lastly, another figure higher up
along the hill, in quick motion towards the first, with other specks
behind it. The poachers instantly understood that it was Westall--whose
particular beat lay in this part of the estate--signalling to his night
watcher, Charlie Dynes, and that the two men would be on them in no
time. It was the work of a few seconds to efface as far as possible the
traces of their raid, to drag some thick and trailing brambles which
hung near over the mouth of the hole where there had been digging, to
catch up the ferrets and game, and to bid Hurd's lurcher to come to
heel. The two men crawled up the ditch with their burdens as far away to
leeward as they could get from the track by which the keepers would
cross the field. The ditch was deeply overgrown, and when the
approaching voices warned them to lie close, they crouched under a dense
thicket of brambles and overhanging bushes, afraid of nothing but the
noses of the keepers' dogs.

Dogs and men, however, passed unsuspecting.

"Hold still!" said Hurd, checking Patton's first attempt to move. "He'll
be back again mos' like. It's 'is dodge."

And sure enough in twenty minutes or so the men reappeared. They
retraced t