“All right, all right,” said the horse-thief. “You’ve got me, ’ard and tight, that’s sure, an’ I don’t see no way out o’ it, now. I can give Mr. Gaston information that will lead him to the boy and the ’oss, sir.” Then the man told how he had seen Joe on the canal, driving the tow-horses. “How do you know it was our son you saw?” inquired Mr. Gaston, sternly. “Well, it was the same lad that went into the barn an’ came out of it again that lovely mornin’ in June. Besides, this ’ere gray ’oss was there, you know, and the ’oss knowed ’im, an’ ’e knowed the ’oss. W’y, w’en they see each other on the canal, they was that tickled they rubbed noses an’ cried,--both of ’em.” “Papa,” exclaimed Jennie, “that was Joe! I know it was! It was Joe and Old Charlie!” “To tell the truth,” said Callipers, “the lad didn’t look just to say swell. ’Is clothes, if I must remark on ’em, seemed to be summat the worse for wear. His jacket an’ trousers was jest about so-so. ’Is shoes ’ad give out in places too numerous to mention. An’ there was ’ardly enough left of the ’at ’e ’ad on to make it proper to speak of it.” “Father,” exclaimed Mrs. Gaston, “we must get him at once. He is in want; he is suffering! He is honest, too. He has been foolish and headstrong, but he is honest, and we have wronged him in our thought every day for three months. Now he must come home!” It had been many years since Mrs. Gaston had expressed herself in so positive a manner as this to her husband. But now it was not necessary. He was as impatient for Joe’s return as she. “I shall go to-morrow morning,” he said firmly, “and find him and bring him home.” For the last two or three minutes Squire Bidwell had been gazing intently at something that had attracted his notice off on the hillside in the distance. “Well, I declare!” he exclaimed, finally, “that _is_ curious. Look!” He pointed to the place where the open country road wound up the long slope of Hickory Hill. The sun had so far descended that the valley was in shadow, but it was still flooding the hilltops with its yellow light; and in its glow the figure of a boy on a horse, almost a mile away, was distinctly outlined. “Do you see them,” asked the squire,--“up there in the road? They’ve done it twice or three times already. Now they’re going to do it again; watch ’em!” What “they” had done was this: The boy was apparently laboring under some indecision, as if wishing to remain on the top of the hill. The horse, however, was plainly bent upon rushing down the hill toward the house. After a plunge down the road, the rider would succeed in turning the animal’s head up again; but he would no sooner have got a fair start in that direction, than the horse, swinging suddenly around, would begin to gallop furiously down the road once more toward the Gaston farm.