tate," exclaimed
Rodney, dropping his axe and starting posthaste for the stable. "You
might as well give up now, Mr. Westall, for the colt is Copper-bottom
stock and can travel for twenty-four hours at a stretch."

Again Rodney told himself that he had never been more astonished. He was
delighted, too, to find that his friend had not forgotten the tricks he
had learned at the Barrington Military Academy. He had not only arranged
a "dummy" in the dark--making so good a job of it, too, that the man
Harvey, with the light of a pine knot to aid him, had not been able to
discover the cheat but he had left his boots sticking out from under the
blanket and gone off in his stocking feet. But why had he taken Rodney's
horse instead of his own? It was all right, of course, for a fair
exchange was no robbery, but Rodney would have liked to have had that
question answered.

"It seems that Jeff's dogs are not worth the powder it would take to
blow them up," said he to Mr. Westall, who had followed close at his
heels. "Your man has gone off with my horse, and I don't believe you
have a nag in your party that can catch him. Now what's to be done?"

"I was a plumb dunce for placing any dependence on those dogs," replied
the Emergency man, as soon as his surprise and anger would permit him to
speak. "I might have known that they would not pay the slightest
attention to Percival after they had seen him with us about the camp.
Nels, was there anything in or around the corn-crib to show how he got
out?"

"Not the first that I could see," answered the wood-cutter. "The bar was
in its place, and when I opened the door I was as certain as I could be
that I saw him laying there on the shucks with his feet sticking out.
When I called and he didn't say nothing, I thought I would go in and
snatch him up off'n them shucks in a way that would learn him not to
play 'possum on me ary 'nother time; but when I snatched I didn't get
nothing but the blanket and empty boots."

"Harvey, he must have been gone when you went in there with your light,"
said Mr. Westall, reproachfully. "No doubt he threw the bar up with his
hand, and his object in closing the door after him was to hide his
escape as long as possible. If he went about midnight he has nearly six
hours the start of us, on a swift horse and along a road he knows like a
book. Let's go home, boys. We've done the best we could, but next time
we'll try and be a little sharper."

While this conv