“What’s the matter with ol’ Red-eye--lost the scent again?” came Bull Whaley’s panting bass. And as if in answer the bloodhound spoke--a full-throated, menacing challenge that fairly lifted the hair on Tad’s head. Through the screening reeds he could see the beast on the other side of the pool, gray and gigantic in the moonlight, its long ears trailing the ground as it nosed here and there along the bank. [Illustration: HE COULD SEE THE BEAST ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE POOL] Behind, in the shadow, was the broad, squat figure of Whaley, and another man whom Tad did not recognize was holding the hound’s leash. A stream of profanity came from this second man. “Lost him!” he growled. “Must have swum across. What d’ye say--want to send the dog over?” “No use,” returned the other. “The boy’s most likely a long ways off by now. An’ even if Red-eye got over without bein’ bit by a snake, I wouldn’t foller him. The nearest place to cross is Cordle’s Bridge, a mile away. What I say is we’d best git back to the horses an’ make it down to the river road in a hurry. We’d ought to head him off there, sure.” They stood there arguing for a while, then turned back into the woods, dragging the huge, unwilling hound. And Tad, feeling that he had at least a momentary respite from pursuit, started toward the setting moon once more. The rest had helped both his legs and his courage. Now that he knew how the outlaws expected to capture him, he believed he had a chance to outwit them, while if he had not overheard their plans, he might have walked straight into their ambush on the river road. The shore of the pond was fringed with a sparse growth of saplings and brush, through which Tad made his way without much difficulty. Beyond it he could catch glimpses of a broad open space, gleaming palely in the moonlight. At first he thought it was water--a larger pond, perhaps--and his heart sank at the idea of having to swim again. But when he reached the edge of the trees he saw that what lay before him was a great cotton field, white with opening bloom. Easily half a mile wide, it stretched back to the north and east so far that his eyes lost it in the moonlit haze. Crossing the waist-high cotton was dangerous, Tad knew. He veered to the left, skirting the end of the field, and at its farther corner came on a well-defined path leading into the woods. It bore a little north of west, in the direction he wished to follow, and he could see from the grass and brush in the track that it was little used. After a careful scrutiny of the cotton field for pursuers, he went forward along the path as fast as his weary legs would carry him. Once the whir of a rattler, behind him, made cold chills run down his spine and gave speed to his feet. And half a mile farther on he was frightened almost out of his wits when a partly-grown razor-back boar leaped up, grunting, from its bed beside the path, and dashed off into the woods.