I followed him, cautiously.  I had always been a bit proud of what I called my woodcraft, having played much at Red Indians as a youngster, and I took care to walk lightly as I stalked him from one brake to another.  He went on and on—­a long way, right away from Hathercleugh, and in the direction of where Till meets Tweed.  And at last he was out of the Hathercleugh grounds, and close to the Till, and in the end he took to a thin belt of trees that ran down the side of the Till, close by the place where Crone’s body had been found, and almost opposite the very spot, on the other bank, where I had come across Phillips lying dead; and suddenly I saw what he was after.  There, right ahead, was an old boat, tied up to the bank—­he was making for it, intending doubtless to put himself across the two rivers, to get the north bank of the Tweed, and so to make for safety in other quarters.

It was there that things went wrong.  I was following cautiously, from tree to tree, close to the river-bank, when my foot caught in a trail of ground bramble, and I went headlong into the brushwood.  Before I was well on my feet, he had turned and was running back at me, his face white with rage and alarm, and a revolver in his hand.  And when he saw who it was, he had the revolver at the full length of his arm, covering me.

“Go back!” he said, stopping and steadying himself.

“No!” said I.

“If you come a yard further, Moneylaws, I’ll shoot you dead!” he declared.  “I mean it!  Go back!”

“I’m not coming a foot nearer,” I retorted, keeping where I was.  “But I’m not going back.  And whenever you move forward, I’m following.  I’m not losing sight of you again, Mr. Meekin!”

He fairly started at that—­and then he began looking on all sides of me, as if to find out if I was accompanied.  And all of a sudden he plumped me with a question.

“Where is Hollins?” he asked.  “I’ll be bound you know!”

“Dead!” I answered him.  “Dead, Mr. Meekin!  As dead as Phillips, or as Abel Crone.  And the police are after you—­all round—­and you’d better fling that thing into the Till there and come with me.  You’ll not get away from me as easily now as you did yon time in your yacht.”

It was then that he fired at me—­from some twelve or fifteen yards’ distance.  And whether he meant to kill me, or only to cripple me, I don’t know; but the bullet went through my left knee, at the lower edge of the knee-cap, and the next thing I knew I was sprawling on all-fours on the earth, and the next—­and it was in the succeeding second, before even I felt a smart—­I was staring up from that position to see the vengeance that fell on my would-be murderer in the very instant of his attempt on me.  For as he fired and I fell, a woman sprang out of the bushes at his side, and a knife flashed, and then he too fell with a cry that was something between a groan and a scream—­and I saw that his assailant was the Irishwoman Nance Maguire, and I knew at once who it was that had killed Hollins.