rgue, but he continued speaking.

"If you try and assault us I shall, in self-defence, let fly at your
legs. The horses are going on."

He treated the incident as closed. "Get up on that waggon, Flack," he
said to a thickset, wiry little man. "Boon, take the trolley."

The two drivers blustered to Redwood.

"You've done your duty to your employers," said Redwood. "You stop in
this village until we come back. No one will blame you, seeing we've got
guns. We've no wish to do anything unjust or violent, but this occasion
is pressing. I'll pay if anything happens to the horses, never fear."

"_That's_ all right," said Cossar, who rarely promised.

They left the waggonette behind, and the men who were not driving went
afoot. Over each shoulder sloped a gun. It was the oddest little
expedition for an English country road, more like a Yankee party,
trekking west in the good old Indian days.

They went up the road, until at the crest by the stile they came into
sight of the Experimental Farm. They found a little group of men there
with a gun or so--the two Fulchers were among them--and one man, a
stranger from Maidstone, stood out before the others and watched the
place through an opera-glass.

These men turned about and stared at Redwood's party.

"Anything fresh?" said Cossar.

"The waspses keeps a comin' and a goin'," said old Fulcher. "Can't see
as they bring anything."

"The canary creeper's got in among the pine trees now," said the man
with the lorgnette. "It wasn't there this morning. You can see it grow
while you watch it."

He took out a handkerchief and wiped his object-glasses with careful
deliberation.

"I reckon you're going down there," ventured Skelmersdale.

"Will you come?" said Cossar.

Skelmersdale seemed to hesitate.

"It's an all-night job."

Skelmersdale decided that he wouldn't.

"Rats about?" asked Cossar.

"One was up in the pines this morning--rabbiting, we reckon."

Cossar slouched on to overtake his party.

Bensington, regarding the Experimental Farm under his hand, was able to
gauge now the vigour of the Food. His first impression was that the
house was smaller than he had thought--very much smaller; his second was
to perceive that all the vegetation between the house and the pine-wood
had become extremely large. The roof over the well peeped amidst
tussocks of grass a good eight feet high, and the canary creeper
wrapped about the chimney stack and gesticulated with stiff