“All right.  I believe I know where Elphick and Cardlestone can be found.  That’s all.”

“All!  It’s enough.  Where, then, in heaven’s name?”

“Elphick has a queer little place where he and Cardlestone sometimes go fishing—­right away up in one of the wildest parts of the Yorkshire moors.  I expect they’ve gone there.  Nobody knows even their names there—­they could go and lie quiet there for—­ages.”

“Do you know the way to it?”

“I do—­I’ve been there.”

Spargo motioned him to hurry.

“Come on, then,” he said.  “We’re going there by the very first train out of this.  I know the train, too—­we’ve just time to snatch a mouthful of breakfast and to send a wire to the Watchman, and then we’ll be off.  Yorkshire!—­Gad, Breton, that’s over three hundred miles away!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

FORESTALLED

Travelling all that long summer day, first from the south-west of England to the Midlands, then from the Midlands to the north, Spargo and Breton came late at night to Hawes’ Junction, on the border of Yorkshire and Westmoreland, and saw rising all around them in the half-darkness the mighty bulks of the great fells which rise amongst that wild and lonely stretch of land.  At that hour of the night and amidst that weird silence, broken only by the murmur of some adjacent waterfall the scene was impressive and suggestive; it seemed to Spargo as if London were a million miles away, and the rush and bustle of human life a thing of another planet.  Here and there in the valleys he saw a light, but such lights were few and far between; even as he looked some of them twinkled and went out.  It was evident that he and Breton were presently to be alone with the night.

“How far?” he asked Breton as they walked away from the station.

“We’d better discuss matters,” answered Breton.  “The place is in a narrow valley called Fossdale, some six or seven miles away across these fells, and as wild a walk as any lover of such things could wish for.  It’s half-past nine now, Spargo:  I reckon it will take us a good two and a half hours, if not more, to do it.  Now, the question is—­Do we go straight there, or do we put up for the night?  There’s an inn here at this junction:  there’s the Moor Cock Inn a mile or so along the road which we must take before we turn off to the moorland and the fells.  It’s going to be a black night—­look at those masses of black cloud gathering there!—­and possibly a wet one, and we’ve no waterproofs.  But it’s for you to say—­I’m game for whatever you like.”

“Do you know the way?” asked Spargo.

“I’ve been the way.  In the daytime I could go straight ahead.  I remember all the landmarks.  Even in the darkness I believe I can find my way.  But it’s rough walking.”

“We’ll go straight there,” said Spargo.  “Every minute’s precious.  But—­can we get a mouthful of bread and cheese and a glass of ale first?”