“Wait a minute,” he admonished them, putting up his hand to emphasise the appeal.

“Oh, what now?” cried Reuther, but with a rising head instead of a sinking one.

“We will see,” said Mr. Black, hastening to meet their guide.  “What now?” he asked.  “Have they come together?  Have the detectives got him?”

“No, not him; only his horse.  The animal has just trotted up—­ riderless.”

“Good God! the child’s instinct was true.  He has been thrown—­”

“No.”  Mr. Sloan’s mouth was close to the lawyer’s ear.  “There is another explanation.  If the fellow is game, and anxious enough to reach the train to risk his neck for it, there’s a path he could have taken which would get him there without his coming round this turn.  I never thought it a possible thing till I saw his horse trotting on ahead of us without a rider.”  Then as Reuther came ambling up, “Young lady, don’t let me scare you, but it looks now as if the young man had taken a short cut to the station, which, so far as I know, has never been taken but by one man before.  If you will draw up closer—­here! give me hold of your bridle.  Now look back along the edge of the precipice for about half a mile, and you will see shooting up from the gully a solitary tree whose topmost branch reaches within a few feet of the road above.”

She looked.  They were at the lower end of the gully which curved up and away from this point like an enormous horseshoe.  They could see the face of the precipice for miles.

“Yes,” she suddenly replied, as her glance fell on the one red splash showing against the dull grey of the cliff.

“A leap from the road, if well-timed, would land a man among some very stalwart branches.  It’s a risk and it takes nerve; but it succeeded once, and I dare say has succeeded again.”

“But—­but—­if he didn’t reach—­didn’t catch—­”

“Young lady, he’s a man in a thousand.  If you want the proof, look over there.”

He was pointing again, but in a very different direction now.  As her anxious eye sought the place he indicated, her face flushed crimson with evanescent joy.  Just where the open ground of the gully melted again into the forest, the figure of a man could be seen moving very quickly.  In another moment it had disappeared amid the foliage.

“Straight for the station,” announced Mr. Sloan; and, taking out his watch, added quickly; “the train is not due for fifteen minutes.  He’ll catch it.”

“The train south?”

“Yes, and the train north.  They pass here.”

Mr. Black turned a startled eye upon the guide.  But Reuther’s face was still alight.  She felt very happy.  Their journey had not been for naught.  He would have six hours’ start of his pursuers; he would be that much sooner in Shelby; he would hear the accusation against him and refute it before she saw him again.

But Mr. Black’s thoughts were less pleasing than hers.  He had never had more than a passing hope of Oliver’s innocence, and now he had none at all.  The young man had fled, not in response to his father’s telegram, but under the impulse of his own fears.  They would not find him in Shelby when they returned.  They might never find him anywhere again.  A pretty story to carry back to the judge.