In little more than half an hour after the horseman who had watched Lionel Dale so closely left the post of observation, a short man, mounted on a stout pony, which had evidently been urged along at unusual speed, came along the road, which wound around the hill already mentioned. This individual wore a heavy, country-made coat, and leather leggings, and had a handkerchief tied over his hat. This very unbecoming appendage was stained with blood on the side which covered the right cheek and the wearer was plentifully daubed and bespattered with mud, his sturdy little steed being in a similar condition. As he urged the pony on, his sharp, crafty eyes kept up an incessant scrutiny, in which his beak-like nose seemed to take an active part. But there was nothing to reward the curiosity, amounting to anxiety, with which the short man surveyed the wintry scene around. All was silent and empty. If the horseman had designed to see and speak with any member of the hunting-party, he had come too late. He recognized the fact very soon, and very discontentedly. Without being so great a genius, as he believed and represented himself, Mr. Andrew Larkspur was really a very clever and a very successful detective, and he had seldom been foiled in a better-laid plan than that which had induced him to follow Lionel Dale to the meet on this occasion. But he had not calculated on precisely the exact kind of accident which had befallen him, and when he found himself thrown violently from his pony, in the middle of a road at once hard, sloppy, and newly-repaired with very sharp stones, he was both hurt and angry. It did not take him a great deal of time to get the pony on its legs, and shake himself to rights again; but the delay, brief as it was, was fatal to his hopes of seeing Lionel Dale. The meet had taken place, the hunt was in full progress, far away, and Mr. Andrew Larkspur had nothing for it but to sit forlornly for awhile upon the muddy pony, indulging in meditations of no pleasant character, and then ride disconsolately back to Frimley.