all stopped at once, and held back to
allow Robin to advance alone. The poor man went forward with a beating
heart, and stopped abruptly at the entrance, where he stood for a few
seconds as if he were unable to go in. At length he raised the curtain
and looked in; then he entered quickly.

"Gone, Walter, they're gone!" he cried; "come in, lad, and see. Here's
evidence o' my dear children everywhere. It's plain, too, that they
have left only a few hours agone."

"True for ye, the fire's hot," said Larry, lighting his pipe from the
embers in testimony of the truth of his assertion.

"They can't be far off," said Slugs, who was examining every relic of
the absent ones with the most minute care. "The less time we lose in
follerin' of 'em the better--what think ye, lad?" The Black Swan nodded
his approval of the sentiment.

"What! without sleep or supper?" cried Stiff, whose enthusiasm in the
chase had long ago evaporated.

"Ay," said Robin sternly, "_I_ start _now_. Let those stop here who
will."

To do Stiff justice, his objections were never pressed home, so he
comforted himself with a quid of tobacco, and accompanied Robin and his
men with dogged resolution when they left the hut. Plunging once more
into the forest, they followed up the track all night, as they had
already followed it up all day.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

A GLADSOME MEETING.

Some hours before dawn Robin Gore came to an abrupt pause, and looking
over his shoulder, held up his hand to command silence. Then he pointed
to a small mound, on the top of which a faint glow of light was seen
falling on the boughs of the shrubs, with which it was crowned.

The moon had just set, but there was sufficient light left to render
surrounding objects pretty distinct.

"That's them," said Robin to Walter, in a low whisper, as the latter
came close to his side; "no doubt they're sound asleep, an' I'm puzzled
how to wake 'em up without givin' 'em a fright."

"Musha! it's a fright that Wapaw will give _us_, av we start him
suddenly, for he's murtherin' quick wi' his rifle," whispered Larry.

"We'd better hide and then give a howl," suggested Stiff, "an', after
they're sot up, bring 'em down with a familiar hail."

The deliberations of the party were out short and rendered unnecessary,
however, by Wapaw himself. That sharp-eared red man had been startled
by the breaking of a branch which Larry O'Dowd chanced to set his foot
on, and, before Robin