But no further answer was to be had from the old woman. She seemed now to be asleep. Elizabeth stood for a moment considering. Then she reached up and pushed the will a little farther back on the beam. There it could not be seen, but she could direct them where to find it. She would pay the old woman’s funeral expenses if they destroyed the will and if she died penniless. Forty dollars was nothing compared to the precious life which might now be in danger. Clambering to old Joe’s back, Elizabeth started to go farther into the woods. For herself she had not the least fear. If she could only see Sheldon and find what they wanted of her! Sometimes she bravely determined to hold out against them even if it were only the will which they wanted. The old woman should do with her money what she chose, they should not coerce her! They would get tired and let Herbert go; they would not risk their lives for the sake of forty dollars! If she gave them the will, she would only be doing what all the other inhabitants had been doing for generations, ignoring their crimes for fear of reprisal and giving them a free hand. It was no wonder they had no fear of God or man! But they had actually carried off her brother! It was difficult to hold to any principle when one remembered that! As she rode on, looking eagerly from side to side, another suspicion entered her mind. Was it possible that they suspected Old Mammy Sheldon of having revealed some secret of the past, some hidden crime? The farmer had said that they would not stop at murder. The old woman had talked about some one who was shot and buried. Elizabeth shuddered. Presently she came to a place where the dim road divided, one fork going toward the right, the other bending toward the left. There was nothing which indicated the way to the mountaineers’ settlement, except that the right-hand road seemed to run against an almost perpendicular section of the mountain-side. The lay of the land seemed to indicate that that road did not go far. Selecting the road to the left, she rode on, not noticing at first the gradual descent. Nor did she hear back of her the sound of hurried footsteps. The man at whose sleeping presence Joe had snorted, paused, panting, at the fork of the road where she had paused. He looked up and down the road into the forest, and even, in a foolish way, up into the air. Then he ran on to the right. Presently Elizabeth began to be doubtful about her choice, but she decided to ride a little farther. When at last she was about to turn back, she found that she had been riding for a few rods in a little glade and that the road had vanished, either having ended, or having turned imperceptibly in another direction. She gave Joe a free rein, but Joe seemed to have no wisdom about wood roads.