“Ye’ll soon ken.  Watch the bit scaur.”

Foster saw a faint dark line down the hill, and supposed it was a gully, torn out of the peat.  It ran nearly straight up, crossing the strangers’ indirect course to the summit, and would make a very rough means of ascent, but if they entered it the men would be out of sight.  He blamed himself for not looking back before but had felt safe in the wilds, and even now it was hard to believe that the men were following him.  Straining his eyes, he watched them move towards the gully, and set his lips when they disappeared.  It was plain that they meant to get as close as possible before they were seen.

He did not move for the next few moments, but his brain was busy.  Graham might have come back down the north road in his car and afterwards taken to the moors, but it was difficult to understand how he had found Foster’s track.  Chance, however, sometimes favored one in a curious way; the fellow might have found out that he had left the road and expected him to stop the night in Bewcastle dale.  Since Foster had Pete with him, he was not, in one sense, afraid of Graham.  Although the fellow was, no doubt, dangerous, he was not likely to force an equal fight.  The risk would come if Graham found him alone and at a disadvantage, when Foster thought it would go hard with him.  This was why he could not have the men on his track, watching for the right moment to strike.  It was, however, possible that the strangers were police, and he lay in the heath with knitted brows until Pete touched him.

“They wouldna’ find us easy if we keepit still, but I’m no’ for spending the night among the bents,” he said.  “I’m thinking we’ll try the big flow and lose them in the mire.”

He rose and crossing the summit started down the incline, while Foster followed as fast as he could.  It would be some time before the others reached the spot they had left, but the light of the sinking moon touched the face of the hill and as long as they were moving their figures could be seen.  When they reached the bottom Pete headed west, and presently stopped at the edge of a wide level space.  Tufts of wild cotton gleamed lividly in the moonlight, and here and there a sparkle marked a pool, but, farther on, a trail of mist stretched across the bog.  It did not look inviting, and when Pete stopped for a few moments Foster heard the water bubble through the wet moss in which his feet sank.

“The black burn rins on the ither side, and there’s just one place where ye can cross,” Pete said thoughtfully.  “An old shieling stands on a bit dry knowe near the middle o’ the flow, and I wouldna’ say but we might spend the night there, if it was needful.”

Foster left it to him, although he was not much attracted by the thought of spending the night in the bog, and Pete moved forward cautiously.  He seemed to be following a track, because he went straight ahead, tramping through clumps of rushes, and splashing into pools.  Foster noted that the latter were shallow, though he had fallen into bog-holes that were deep.  They tried to move silently, but they made some noise, and he felt relieved when they plunged into a belt of mist that would hide them from their pursuers.  By the look of the ground to left and right, he imagined that a stranger who lost the track would have serious trouble in regaining firm soil,