the miscreants inside the ruin; we must search for
them outside."

And he divided his party into four detachments; and one he sent up the
narrow path leading to the fountain, another he sent up on the heights,
and another down in the glen; while he himself led the fourth back upon
the path leading through the thicket. And they beat the woods in all
directions without coming upon the "trail" of the burglars. But Sheriff
Benthwick, in going through the thicket with his little party, met a
harmless negro on a tired horse with a little dog before him. The
sheriff knew the negro, and accosted him by name.

"Joe, what are you doing here, so far from your home?"

Joe was ready with his answer:

"If you please, marster, I am coming to fetch away some truck left here
by a picnic party from our house."

"Ah! a picnic party! I know all about that picnic party! I have been up
to the old ruin and had a talk with your master, and he has told me of
it," said the sheriff cunningly, hoping to betray the negro into some
admissions that might be of service to him in tracing Sybil.

But his cunning was no match for Joe's.

"Well, marster," he said, "if Marse Lyon telled you all about that, you
must be satisfied into your honorable mind, as I am a telling of the
truth, and does come after the truck left in the chapel, which you may
see my wagon a-standin' out there on the road beyant for yourself."

"Then if you have a wagon, why do you come on horseback?"

"Lor's marster, I couldn't no ways get a wagon through this here
thicket."

The sheriff felt that that was true, and that he had been making a fool
of himself. He made a great many more inquiries, but received no
satisfaction from astute Joe. He asked no question about the little dog,
considering her of no importance. And at length, having no pretext to
stop the negro, he let him pass and go on.

Joe, glad to be relieved, touched up his horse and trotted briskly
through the thicket, and through the graveyard, to the ruined door of
the old chapel. Here he dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and put
down the little Skye terrier, who no sooner found herself at liberty,
than she bounded into the church and ran with joyous leaps and barks,
and jumped upon her master, licking, or kissing, as she understood
kissing, his hands and face all over with her little tongue, and
assuring him how glad she was to see him.

"Nelly, Nelly, good Nelly, pretty Nelly," said Mr. Berners, caress