In less than an hour Red tapped at the door again. Tim had watched Kane make another tour much like the first. But now he was gone and everything was still. Tim went to the door and whispered to Red, “You’ve seen Kane, of course.” Red nodded. “But I think my sentry has gone to sleep, and there’s a door from this room to a storeroom at the back. If we drop to the ground behind the house, we can retrace our route for a mile or so to confuse the dogs.” “Then go for the railroad as we did before. They’d hardly expect that we’d do that.” As Tim grasped his boots and his haversack a floor board creaked. He stood stock still for half a minute, then moved through the door. “Put on your haversack,” Red whispered. “We may have some running to do.” They watched while Kane made another circuit of the farm, waited awhile and passed into the storeroom through a very small door. The window of the storeroom faced the back but it was smaller than the other windows of the house. Below it was a small shed roof. “That’s a bit of luck,” Red whispered. They struggled through the window and dropped to the roof and then to the ground with what seemed like a terrible chorus of noises. They stood for a moment, then moved along the back of the house. As they rounded the corner and started across the side yard MacNeil’s dogs set up a racket in an outbuilding beside the barn. The fugitives broke into a run, keeping the house between them and the place where they had last seen Kane. They gained the shelter of a stand of pines and paused to look back. Kane soon rounded a corner of the house, clearly confused as to which way to look. He reined in at the back of the house and looked toward the north, then dismounted, ran up the steps and rapped on the door. Tim and Red retreated into the trees. When they topped a little rise they ran along the road heading south. Just past a curve they found the place where the cows had crossed. Here they left the road and cut to the west across the field and through the grove of scrub oak and pine. As they ran down the hill they could hear the hounds. They reached the little brook and ran in the water for a hundred yards or so until the sound of the dogs was disturbingly close. Then they dashed up the ridge toward the railroad track. They approached the track. They were gasping for breath and the baying of the hounds was sharp in their ears. Lanterns bobbed at the bottom of the hill. The hopelessness of flight struck Tim with sickening force. When they reached the track a new sound broke the air. The fugitives listened and the sound came again, the shriek of a whistle off to the south. Without a word to each other they jumped the track and ran like madmen along the embankment. Now the hounds were close, their baying rose above the roar of the approaching engine. A shot rang out. The train moved toward them, lumbering along at what seemed a snail’s pace. The engineers must have seen the hunters. The whistle shrieked repeatedly.