shadows of the looming wooded range, darkening now,
showing only blurred effects of red and brown and orange, fell upon
them, and the guerilla checked the pace, for the horse was among
boulders and rough ledges that betokened the dry bed of a stream. Great
crags had begun to line the way, first only on one marge of the channel;
then the clifty banks appeared on the other side, and at length a deep,
black-arched opening yawned beneath the mountains, glooming with
sepulchral shadows; in the silence one might hear drops trickling
vaguely and the sudden hooting of an owl from within.

He drew up his horse abruptly, and contemplated the grim aperture.

"So they came into Tanglefoot down the road, and went out of the Cove by
this tunnel?"

"Yessir!" she piped. What had befallen her voice? what appalled eerie
squeak was this! She cleared her throat timorously. "They couldn't hev
done it later in the fall season. Tanglefoot Creek gits ter runnin' with
the fust rains."

"An' Tolhurst knew that too! He must have had a guide--a guide that
knows the Cove like I know the palm of my hand! Well, I'll catch him
yet, sometime. I'll hang him! I'll hang him--if I have to grow a tree
a-purpose."

What strange influence had betided the landscape? Around and around
circled the great stationary mountains anchored in the foundations of
the earth. It was a long moment before they were still again--perhaps,
indeed, it was the necessity of guarding her balance on the fiery steed,
a new cause of apprehension, that paradoxically steadied Ethelinda's
nerves. Ackert had dismounted, throwing the reins over his arm. He had
caught sight of the hoofmarks along the moist sandy spaces of the
channel, mute witness in point of number, and a guaranty of the truth of
her story. A sudden glitter arrested his eyes. He stooped and picked up
a broken belt-buckle with the significant initials U.S. yet showing upon
it.

"I'll hang that guide yet," he muttered, his eyes dark with angry
conviction, his face lowering with fury. "I'll hang him--I won't expect
to prove it p'int blank. Jes' let me git a mite o' suspicion, an' I'll
guarantee the slipknot!"

She could never understand her motive, her choice of the moment.

"Cap'n Ackert," she trembled forth. There was so much significance in
her tone that, standing at her side, he looked up in sudden expectation.
"I tole ye the truth whenst I say I _seen_ no guide"--he made a gesture
of impatience; he had no time