“What! no harm?”

“I mean to her.  She’s had no bad purpose in going to his chamber.  I see it all!”

“Well, and is it not quite enough to drive a man mad, to think that the best designs of a man are to be thwarted, and his neck put in danger, by the meddling of a thing like this?  She has blabbed all our secrets—­nay, made him listen to them—­for, even while we ascended the stairs to his chamber, they were concealed in the closet above the stairway, watched all our movements, and heard every word we had to say.”

“And you would be talking,” retorted the landlord.  The other glared at him ferociously, but proceeded:—­

“I heard the sound—­their breathing—­I told you at the time that I heard something stirring in the closet.  But you had your answer.  For an experienced man, Munro, you are duller than an owl by daylight.”

“I’m afraid so,” answered the other coolly.  “But it’s too late now for talk.  We must be off and active, if we would be doing anything.  I’ve been out to the stable, and find that the young fellow has taken off his horse.  He has been cool enough about it, for saddle and bridle are both gone.  He’s had time enough to gear up in proper style, while you were so eloquent along the stairs.  I reckon there was something to scare him off at last, however, for here’s his dirk—­I suppose it’s his—­which I found at the stable-door.  He must have dropped it when about to mount.”

“’Tis his!” said Rivers, seizing and examining it.  “It is the weapon he drew on me at the diggings.”

“He has the start of us—­”

“But knows nothing of the woods.  It is not too late.  Let us be off.  Lucy is recovering, and you can now leave her in safety.  She will find the way to her chamber—­or to some chamber.  It seems that she has no scruples in going to any.”

“Stop that, Guy!  Don’t slander the girl.”

“Pooh! are you going to set up for a sentimentalist?”

“No:  but if you can’t learn to stop talking, I shall set you down as a fool!  For a man of action, you use more of an unnecessary tongue than any living man I ever met.  For God’s sake, sink the lawyer when you’re out of court!  It will be high time to brush up for a speech when you are in the dock, and pleading with the halter dangling in your eyes.  Oh, don’t glare upon me!  He who flings about his arrows by the handful mustn’t be angry if some of them are flung back.”

“Are you ready?”

“Ay, ready!—­She’s opening her eyes.  We can leave her now.—­What’s the course?”

“We can determine in the open air.  He will probably go west, and will take one or other of the two traces at the fork, and his hoofs will soon tell us which.  Our horses are refreshed by this, and are in readiness.  You have pistols:  see to the flints and priming.  There must be no scruples now.  The matter has gone quite too far for quiet, and though the affair was all mine at first, it is now as perfectly yours.”