"We're not safe yet, boy," he cautioned. "Dillaby and his fellows will turn heaven and earth to find us. Our getting away from old man Prior's was pretty raw work for detectives who are supposed to be onto their jobs and rather than be hauled up on the carpet to explain to their superiors, they'll work as they never have before. "I didn't even propose to stay at Brett's longer than to make an examination of Clell. Some of the posse must know him and they'll suggest it to the man-hunters and there'll be a merry old raid." Yet even the bandit-chieftain was surprised at the suddenness with which his prophecy was fulfilled. One of the men who was riding with Higgins did, indeed, know of the lonely cabin. Many a day he had passed beneath its thatched roof, waiting for the night to come that they might go out to shoot the deer, lured by the flaring torches, called "jacks" in hunter's parlance, they had placed nearby. As he noted the section in which the fugitives had vanished, the hut immediately flashed into his mind and without delay he communicated his thought to the detectives. "It's worth trying," cried the man-hunters, delightedly. "One of 'em is surely wounded and Jesse's probably making for the cabin either to leave him or wait for him to recover so they can go on. When--" "Isn't there another trail by which we can reach the cabin?" interrupted Jones. "If we follow the one they took with so many horses they would be more than likely to hear us. But if we could arrive there first or from a different direction we'd stand a mighty good chance of getting them for keeps." Others acquainted with the country were called into consultation as the fellow who had suggested the lonely cabin declared that he knew only the way the outlaws, had apparently taken. "I don't know of no other trail," drawled an old, grizzled farmer, "but I _do_ know a place whar we kin git within a few rods of Brett's an' by goin' through fields, too." "Then take us there. A hundred dollars if we arrive before Jesse," returned Higgins. "It's up to you," grinned the man. "If you kin ride, we'll git thar. It ain't no josh about the money, is it?" he added, with Yankee shrewdness seeking to make sure of the reward before he showed the way. "No, sir," rejoined the Pinkerton. "All you've got to do is to get us there in a hurry and you'll earn the easiest hundred dollars you ever did." "I reckon that's right," grinned the farmer. "Come on." And heading diagonally across the fields toward the woods, he raced along through the grass, taking the fences and stonewalls with an ease that would have put many a pink-coated, society huntsman to the blush. So hot was the pace set by the guide that even those of the posse accustomed from childhood to the saddle were forced to exert themselves to keep up and the detectives were soon left straggling as best they could, barely managing to keep the others in sight. "It looks as though you'd be out your hundred plunks," laughed Jones.