But the second volunteered meager information, "She's a suspect. Stayed last night in the Inn and this morning a couple of thousand dollars' worth of diamonds is missin'; that's what we want her for." The tinker brightened perceptibly. "Guess she went by in a wagon half an hour ago--that way. I think I saw her," and as the men turned southward down the road marked Arden he called after them, "Better hurry, if you want to catch her; the wagon was going at a right smart pace." He waited for their backs to be turned and for the crack of the whip that lifted the heels of the sorrel above the dashboard before she plunged, then, with amazing speed, of mind as well as of body, he wrenched every sign from the post and pitched them out of sight behind a neighboring stone wall. The dust from departing wheels still filled the air when Patsy stepped out of the cross-roads church, peacefully radiant, and found the tinker sitting quietly with his back against the post. "So ye are still here. I thought ye might have grown tired of my company, after all, and gone on." Patsy laughed happily. "Now do ye know which road goes to Arden?" "Sure," and the tinker joined in her laugh, while he pointed to the straight road ahead, the road that ran west, at right angles to the one the runabout had taken. "Come on, then," said Patsy; "we ought to be there by sundown." She stopped and looked him over for the space of a second. "Ye are improving wonderfully. Mind! ye mustn't be getting too keen-witted or we'll have to be parting company." "Why?" "That's the why!" And with this satisfactory explanation she led the way down the road the tinker had pointed. VI AT DAY'S END Their road went the way of the setting sun, and Patsy and the tinker traveled it leisurely--after the fashion of those born to the road, who find their joy in the wandering, not in the making of a distance or the reaching of a destination. Since they had left the cross-roads church behind Patsy had marked the tinker casting furtive glances along the way they had come; and each time she marked, as well, the flash of a smile that lightened his face for an instant when he saw that the road still remained empty of aught but themselves. "It's odd," she mused; "he hasn't the look of a knave who might fear a trailing of constables at his heels; and yet--and yet his wits have him pestered about something that lies back of him." Once it was otherwise. There was a rising of dust showing on one of the hills they had climbed a good half-hour before. When the tinker saw it he reached of a sudden for Patsy's hand while he pointed excitedly beyond pasture bars ahead to a brownish field that lay some distance from the road. "See, lass, that's sorrel. If you'll break the road along with me I'll show you where wild strawberries grow, lots of 'em!"