"Oh! that's nothing between me and you," said the gipsy; "but the last journey you went our roan might as well have been stag-hunting. You must have galloped him a dozen miles on end without drawing bridle. 'Tis a good little beast as was ever bred on the moor, but I needn't tell you, Parson, that horseflesh is not iron. What do you want with him, now?" "To mount Dick Boss," was the answer. Fin made a wry face, and Waif held her breath. A sheriff's officer seemed the last person to whom it was natural for a gipsy to lend his horse. Parson Gale put his head out at the tent-door, looked about him into the dark night through which snow-flakes were falling thick; and, having satisfied himself, he could not be overheard, proceeded to unfold his plans, the more frankly that he had every reason to count on the assistance of both his listeners. "There's money be to got by the job," said he, with an evil scowl on his heavy brows. "Blood-money, but what of that? We will share and share alike. This pretty lass of yours, Fin, she found out where the deer harboured. You and Dick Boss, and another handy chap or two, shall help me take him, and when King George comes down with the reward, God bless him--there will be twenty guineas each to spend in drink! If that won't make a blithe wedding, Fin Cooper, I'll engage to remain a bachelor till my dying day!" The gipsy was a man of business. "And your share, Parson?" he asked, calculating the sum to be divided with great exactitude. "I don't desire to be paid," replied the Parson. "I do it for the sport!" Waif leaped from her seat, with flashing eyes, and her hand on the knife she always wore, but sank back laughing wildly, and speaking in short disjointed gasps. "Good!" she said. "Good! He's the right sort, Fin, this Gorgio. Bid him tell us how he means to set about the job." Fin Cooper, turning to the Parson, thought he had never seen so wicked a smile as that which gleamed in Gale's eyes, and curled round his mouth while he repeated, "I do it for the sport, lad; he's a right deer, I tell ye; and if I don't set him up to-morrow, I swear I'll never go hunting again." "That's why you want the roan?" asked Fin, turning the matter over in his mind, as a question of profit and loss. "Right," answered the Parson; "Dick Boss must be on a good nag, and so must I. If John Garnet should get the wind of us, he'll show a clean pair of heels, you may take your oath. But what of that? Let worst come to worst, four mounted men spreading wide, and knowing every yard of the ground, ought to ride him down, though the grey horse had a wing at each foot instead of an iron shoe. But that's not my plan. Hark ye, Fin; we'll be in the saddle before daybreak, and we'll take him while he's asleep." Waif stirred uneasily, but only muttered again, "Good! good! Mind what he says, Fin, for surely the Gorgio speaks fair."