Jim

every lumber-camp, and most of the wide-scattered pioneer cabins had been warned of the flight of the thief, Dan Black, nicknamed Black Dan, and how, in the effort to secure his escape, he ha

o had tended the dog's wound as carefully as if his patient had been the Deputy h

k looked

's gittin' away, Tug," grumbled Long Jackson, who

bite or a bed. He can't cross the river to get over the Border, for I've sent word to hev every bridge an' ferry watched. Black Dan's cunnin' enough to know I'd do jest that, first thing, so he won't waste his time tryin' the river. He'll strike right back into the big timber, co

rt?" demanded Long Jackson, s

t you to come along, MacDonald, an' you, Long, an' Saunders, an' Big Andy, as my posse. Meet me in fifteen minutes at the store an

ckwoods not even a murderer-unless his victim has been a woman or a child-is hunted down with so much zest as a thief. But the Deputy did not like too much volunteer assi

, at first, had been to gain as much lead as possible over the expected pursuit, and he had run straight ahead, leaving a trail which any one

ugitive had dropped into a walk and begun to go more circumspectly. The trail now grew so obscure that the other woodsmen would have had difficu

Jackson, his good humour now quite res

better himself," declared

ruptly to a halt, and held up hi

re ye are, an' don't step out

searching the ground all about

to a particularly clear and heavy impression of a boot-sole close behi

to examine t

w us off," suggested Saunders, who was himself a

tock, "I've watched

to one side or t'other, to br

even. Ef he'd jumped to one side or the other, it would be dug in on that side,

ll but Big Andy, who, being no trailer, was bidden to stand fast-to either side and to the rear, crawling like ferrets and interrogating every

and smoked. One after another they made suggestions, but each suggestion had its futility re

e to his feet, and gav

ikely to come here lookin' for us. Spread out now, an' we'll work on ahead, an' see ef we can't pick up somethin'. You, Big And

ng through a dense screen of branches, Blackstock came upon the face of a rocky knoll, so steep, at that point, that hands a

ackstock spread his men out again, at intervals of three or four paces, and all went cautiously up the stee

llow recess beneath an overhanging ledge. But it was well sheltered by a great

unced, stepping in and

bed them. From the further side, however-to Blackstock's right-a palpable trail, worn clear of moss and herbage, led off by a narrow ledge across the face of the knoll. Half

l, and for a couple of hundred yards along the level, going very slowly, and searching it hawk-

have been in a bit of a hurry, as if he was gittin' out o' somebody's way-Black Dan'

Tug," said MacDona

ng his lean chin and biting o

t was the only fool thing I ever know'd ye to

sely, though he was a man not give

. But now I begin to think Nipsiwaska County'd bette

ishment. He had never before been se

re to the St. Lawrence as kin tech ye, an' ye know it, Tug. Quit yer jolly

bounded confidence Black

wheelbarrow. We'll find out what he thinks o' the situation. I'll take Saunders an' Big Andy with me. Yo