Poodle rejoiced to see from the way Jolls shifted in his seat that the manufacturer was good and uncomfortable. He needed a little cause for rejoicing like that, for Poodle was not any too comfortable, himself. He had got used to the hard slippery McClellan army-saddles, at Monterey. But this clinging to the sides of a sweating horse, without a saddle, was not pleasant. He rolled and slid, but he followed closely enough, till Jolls turned in at a private road, which led by a marsh up a wooded hill, where stood a lonely old shack. Poodle rode by, round a bend, slid off his horse, hitched it back in a thicket, and darted across the road into a field of the abandoned farm which Jolls had entered. He slipped on his shoes and hid the huge straw hat. Running with his head and shoulders low, taking shelter behind shrubs, he approached the hill from behind. Suddenly, his feet sank in mud. A marsh was before him. He ran along its edge, and found that the boggy land surrounded all the hill, except where the road entered, in front. He jerked off his shoes and rushed into the marsh on the jump. Mud soaked through his socks. Briers scratched him. But he went at the bushes as though they were open doors. He didn’t have time to notice he was being scratched and soaked. He reached the hillside and sneaked up it on hands and knees. For he had been startled by the sight of a tall, vicious-faced man, strolling about the top of the hill, with a rifle under his arm, as though he were guarding the cabin toward which Poodle was heading. Once he had to lie flat for three minutes, while mosquitoes covered him. But he didn’t care. Hike must be up there in the cabin! The guard passed out of sight. Poodle rushed to the cabin. He found a rubbish heap—old shoes, bottles, a couple of boards, damp straw—at the back of the house, and slipped under this ill-smelling but concealing heap. Putting his ear against a crack in the old logs, he almost cried out with joy, for he heard Hike’s voice within. Hike was saying: “There’s no use talking to me, Mr. Jolls. I haven’t got anything to say about the Priest aeroplanes. You ought to know that. All I do is to drive them. And if you did anything to me, you’d have just as much trouble.” “Now I _know_, my boy—” came P. J. Jolls’ greasy voice, soothingly. “Now I know,” Poodle heard Hike interrupting, in there, in the cabin, “I know that you and Captain Welch are trying to steal Priest’s rights from him and get the army-appropriation for your old machines. I’m sorry I haven’t got any final say about the thing, because if I did have I’d fight you to the end. But I haven’t got the least bit to say. So you’re only wasting your time trying to get me to keep away from Priest. Why, can’t you see for yourself, I’m only a kid, and—”