Horner checked the pocket. The keys were there. "Where's the truck?" he asked. "Round behind the barn. You take the lane there over to the fence. On t' other side of the fence, but it's Caleb's uncle's truck, mister. I swear, he'll tan Caleb's hide if you--" "Well," said Horner righteously, and then felt foolish, "he ought to." Then he heard Caleb sighing, knew the boy would be all right. He also knew that he would be safe in the pick-up truck for at least an hour or so. For the girl wouldn't dare tell her father, at dawn, coming from the barn, that Caleb's pick-up truck had been stolen. And even Caleb had a problem. Apparently it was some distance back to his uncle's farm--and there was still the problem of accounting for his absence in the night. Horner went down the ladder quickly, and out of the barn. It was still raining outside, but dawn light had finally come. Abruptly, Horner flattened himself against the wall of the barn. He'd heard something. Footsteps squelching through the mucky pasture. A big burly man went by and Horner waited ten seconds before he dared to move again. Then he found the lane behind the barn and marched along through the mud until he reached the three strands of the barbed wire fence, parted them and went through. He had come several hundred yards and now saw the truck ahead of him. He wondered if he dared start the engine with the farmer so close. He decided he had to chance it, swinging up into the truck and inserting the key in the ignition. Moments later, he was driving through the rain. The lane took him to a two-lane blacktop which led to a concrete highway heading south for the city. Grimly, Horner clung to the wheel. It was still quite early and almost no traffic was on the road. Horner expected pursuit almost momentarily. * * * * * Miraculously, he was in Brooklyn. He still couldn't believe it. He had driven the pick-up truck down through the rain to the northern outskirts of the Bronx, where he'd parked it near a subway station. A series of subway rides had brought him through the Bronx and Manhattan to Brooklyn, where he lived with Jane. He thought his trail was covered quite well. There was something hearteningly anonymous about a subway passenger. The rain had stopped. The time, on a bank clock, was quarter past eleven. The bank was around the corner from where the Hugh Horner lived. Horner's steps became swifter: he had already decided to see his wife. Jane must have been frantic, he told himself. Naturally, Horner couldn't just barge in on a wife now apparently twice his age and announce himself. In the first place, she wouldn't believe him. In the second, there would be the element of shock. In the third, he was still wanted by the police--as Lonnie Overman.