Quest had lit a fresh cigar and was smoking vigorously.

“What astonishes me more than anything,” he pronounced, as he stood looking over the desolate expanse of country, “is that when one comes face to face with the fellow he presents all the appearance of a nerveless and broken-down coward.  Then all of a sudden there spring up these evidences of the most amazing, the most diabolical resource....  Who’s this, Lord Ashleigh?”

The latter turned his head.  An elderly man in a brown velveteen suit, with gaiters and thick boots, raised his hat respectfully.

“This is my head-keeper, Middleton,” his master explained.  “He was with us on the chase.”

The Professor shook hands heartily with the newcomer.

“Not a day older, Middleton!” he exclaimed.  “So you are the man who has given us all this trouble, eh?  This gentleman and I have come over from New York on purpose to lay hands on Craig.”

“I am very sorry, sir,” the man replied.  “I wouldn’t have fired my gun if I had known what the consequences were going to be, but them poaching devils that come round here rabbiting fairly send me furious and that’s a fact.  It ain’t that one grudges them a few rabbits, but my tame pheasants all run out here from the home wood, and I’ve seen feathers at the side of the road there that no fox nor stoat had nothing to do with.  All the same, sir, I’m very sorry,” he added, “to have been the cause of any inconvenience.”

“It is rather worse than inconvenience, Middleton,” the Professor said gravely.  “The man who has escaped is one of the worst criminals of these days.”

“He won’t get far, sir,” the gamekeeper remarked, with a little smile.  “It’s a wild bit of country, this, and I admit that men might search it for weeks without finding anything, but those gentlemen from Scotland Yard, sir, if you’ll excuse my making the remark, and hoping that this gentleman,” he added, looking at Quest, “is in no way connected with them—­well, they don’t know everything, and that’s a fact.”

“This gentleman is from the United States,” Lord Ashleigh reminded him, “so your criticism doesn’t affect him.  By-the-by, Middleton, I heard this morning that you’d been airing your opinions down in the village.  You seem to rather fancy yourself as a thief-catcher.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that, my lord,” the man replied respectfully, “but still, I hope I may say that I’ve as much common sense as most people.  You see, sir,” he went on, turning to Quest, “the spots where he could emerge from this track of country are pretty well guarded, and he’ll be in a fine mess, when he does put in an appearance, to show himself upon a public road.  Yet by this time I should say he must be nigh starved.  Sooner or later he’ll have to come out for food.  I’ve a little scheme of my own, sir, I don’t mind admitting,” the man concluded, with a twinkle in his keen brown eyes.  “I’m not giving it away.  If I catch him for you, that’s all that’s wanted, I imagine, and we shan’t be any the nearer to it for letting any one into my little secret.”