“Well, no, not in C——­, but a little way beyond the town a horse had been stolen the night previous, which caused considerable excitement in the neighborhood.”

“How far beyond was it?”

“About five or six miles, I should think.”

“Did you learn any of the particulars?”

“Why, yes, pretty much all of them, I think.”

“I know pretty much everybody in that region, and it may be that it was some of my friends from whom the horse was stolen.  What was the owner’s name, if you heard it?”

“Mandeville, I think; yes, Mandeville.”

“Mandeville!  I know him well.  Has he any idea who took the horse?”

“I think he suspects some one for the theft—­a young man that had been in the neighborhood, but disappeared the same night of the theft, and no one knew where he had gone.”

“In the neighborhood,” repeated Hadley, musingly, as if thinking aloud.  “It must have been the stranger; and yet I thought he was gone some time ago.”

“I don’t think it was a stranger; they told us his name, but I do not know whether I can call it to mind or not.  Let me see, I think it was Hardy or Hartly, or some such name.”

At this juncture, Dick caught Bill’s eye, and gave him a look, as much as to say:  “What the d——­l do you mean?—­Are you going to excite his suspicions and send him back home to clear himself from imputation?” And Bill as plainly replied by looks:  “Never do you mind.  I’ll fix it up right.”

While these magnetic looks were exchanged between the murderous reprobates, Hadley was engaged in trying to think if there was anybody by either of the names mentioned in the vicinity where Mandeville lived, but he could remember no one.  All at once the thought struck him that he himself might be the person accused, and the bare idea that such might be the case sent the blood to his heart and a cold shudder through his frame.—­He was pale as marble, for a moment, and the rascals saw it.  Mastering his emotions, he inquired calmly: 

“The name you heard wasn’t Hadley, was it?”

“No, that wasn’t it.  I heard his name mentioned, but they said he had started for Philadelphia the day before the theft.”

At this announcement, in spite of himself, Hadley drew a sigh of relief, and as he did so Bill gave Dick a knowing look.  Hadley replied: 

“Perhaps the name was Huntly?”

“That’s it!” said Bill; “that’s the name; I remember it now.”

“I should hardly have thought him capable of such a crime.”

“Just what the people said, exactly.”

“And to take advantage of the sickness of Mandeville’s daughter, at that; I can hardly believe it of him.”

“You talk precisely as his neighbors talked.”

“I do not believe he is guilty; no, I am sure he is not.  There are others I would suspect a thousand times of such an act before I would him.”