on a little in advance of the rest. "He's made for my place--as I
knew he would. I knew enough of this country to know that there's a road
at the head of these moors that runs parallel with the railway on one side
and the coast on the other towards Ravensdene--he'd be making for that.
He'd take up the side of this wood, as the nearest way to strike the
road."

That he was right in this we were not long in finding out. Twice, as
our party climbed the steep side of the moorland we came across
evidences of the fugitive. At two points we found places whereat a man
had recently sat down on the bank beneath the trees, to rest. And at
one of them we found more--a blood-soaked bandage.

"No man can go far, losing blood in that way," whispered Lorrimore to
me as we went onward. "He can't be far off."

And suddenly we came across our quarry. Coming out on the top of the
moorland, and rounding the corner of the woods, we hit the road of
which Lorrimore had spoken--a long, white, hedgeless, wall-less ribbon
of track that ran north and south through treeless country. There, a
few yards away from us, stood an isolated cottage, some gamekeeper's
or watcher's place, with a bit of unfenced garden before it. In that
garden was a strange group, gathered about something that at first we
did not see--Mr. Cazalette, obviously very busy, the police-inspector
(a horse and trap, tethered to a post close by, showed how they had
come) a woman, evidently the mistress of the cottage, a child,
open-mouthed wide-eyed with astonishment at these strange happenings,
a dog that moved uneasily around the two-legged folk, whimpering his
concern. The bystanders moved as we hurried up, and then we caught
glimpses of towels and water and hastily-improvised bandages and smelt
brandy, and saw, in the midst of all this Wing, propped up against a
bank of earth, his eyes closed, and over his yellow face a queer
grey-white pallor. His left arm and shoulder were bare, save for the
bandages which Cazalette was applying--there were discarded ones on
the turf which were soaked with blood.

Lorrimore darted forward with a hasty exclamation, and had Cazalette's
job out of the old gentleman's hands and into his own before the rest
of us could speak. He motioned the whole of us away except Cazalette
and the woman, and the police-inspector turned to Mr. Raven and his
niece, and to myself and Scarterfield.

"I think we were just about in time," he said, laconically. "I