as no sound save the swish of the rain about the two figures so
strangely contrasted, confronting one another. Off in the distance,
down the hill, could be seen the dim lights in the old farmhouse of Mr.
Appleby.

"Well?" asked the tramp, in a hard voice. "Go ahead, an' get done with
it. I'm tired of standing here." He had released his thumb from the
spring of the electric torch, and the light went out, making the spot
seem all the blacker by contrast.

Tom drew in his breath sharply. Taking a stride forward, and reaching
out his two muscular arms in the darkness, he asked in a low voice:

"How much did you pay for that cyanide of potassium, Jacob Crouse?"

Tom could hear the surprised gasp from the tramp, he could hear his
teeth chatter, not with cold, but from fright, and a moment later, with
a half audible cry, the man turned and fled away in the storm and
darkness.

"No, you don't!" cried Tom, and with, a spring he sought to grab the
ragged fellow. But the lad was just the fraction of a second too late,
and though he did manage to grasp a portion of the tramp's coat, the
ragged and rotten cloth parted in his hand.

"I'll get you yet!" exclaimed Tom fiercely, as he took up the pursuit
in the darkness. He had been expecting this, and yet it had come so
suddenly that he was not quite prepared for it. He had hoped to get
near enough to the tramp, undetected, to grab him before asking that
question which so startled the fellow. Now the man, on whom so much
depended in the clearing of Tom's name, was sprinting down the farm
lane.

"My ankle!" gasped Tom, as a sudden turn on it sent a twinge of pain
through him. "If it wasn't for that I'd stand a better chance. And
yet I'm not going to give up. I've got to get him, or all my work will
go for nothing."

On he ran, the rain-soaked ground giving forth scarcely a sound save
when he or the man ahead of him stepped into some mud puddle, of which
there were many.

Tom, however, could hear the footfalls of the tramp, who was seeking to
escape, and by their nearness he judged that the fellow was not very
far in advance.

"He hasn't much the start of me," mused Tom. "But if he gets out on
the main road he can easily give me the slip. I've got to corner him
in this lane."

The lane was a long one, bordered on either side by big fields, some of
which were pastures, where the patient cattle stood in the storm, and
others whence fall crops had been gathered