A spiral of blue smoke, curling high above the green and gold of the gorse bushes, revealed Creasy's whereabouts. He had shifted his camp since their first meeting with him: his tilted cart, his tethered pony, and his fire, were now in a hollow considerably nearer the town. Neale and Betty looked down into his retreat to find him busily mending a collection of pots and pans, evidently gathered up during his round of the previous day. He greeted his visitors with a smile, and fetched a three-legged stool from his cart for Betty's better accommodation. "Heard anything?" asked Neale, seating himself on a log of wood. The tinker pointed to several newspapers which lay near at hand, kept from blowing away by a stone placed on the uppermost. "Only what's in these," he answered. "I've read all that--so I'm pretty well posted up, mister. I've just read this morning's--bought it in the town when I went to fetch some bread. Queer affair altogether, I call it!" "Have you looked round about at all?" asked Betty. "I've been a good bit over the Hollow, miss," answered Creasy. "But it's a stiff job seeking anything here. There's nobody knows what a wilderness this Hollow is until they begin exploring it. Holes--corners--nooks--crannies--bracken and bushes--it is a wilderness, and that's a fact! I'd engage to hide myself safely in this square mile for many a week, against a hundred seekers. It wouldn't a bit surprise me, you know, if it comes out in the end that Mr. Horbury, after all, did fall down one of these old shafts. I couldn't believe it possible at first, knowing that he knew every in and out of the place, but I'm beginning to think he may have done. There's only one thing against that theory." "What?" asked Betty. "Where's the other gentleman?" answered the tinker. "If they came together on to this waste, one couldn't fall down a shaft without the other knowing it, eh? And it's scarcely likely they'd both fall down." Neale glanced at Betty and shook his head. "There you are, you see!" he muttered. "They all hang to the notion that Hollis did meet Horbury! Mr. Horbury may have been alone, after all, you know," he went on, turning to Creasy. "There's no proof that the other gentleman was with him." "Aye, well--I'm going on what these paper accounts say," answered Creasy. "They all take it for granted that those two were together. Well, about these old shaftings, mister--I did notice something very early this morning that I thought might be looked into." "What is it?" asked Neale. "Don't let's lose any chance of finding anything out, however small it may be." The tinker finished mending a kettle and set it aside amongst other renovated articles. He lifted the pan of solder off the fire, set it aside, too, and got up. "Come this way, then," he said. "I was going in to Scarnham this noon to tell Mr Polke about it, but as long as you're here----"