“There’s only Mister Vinston, the Vet, and he wouldn’t look at this poor tyke of mine. He hates him too bad for that, because Snatcher killed one of them fancy poodle dogs of his two years ago; and Mr. Vinston ain’t never forgot it—and never will. He wouldn’t do nothing to save Snatcher, miss. Ask Taylor to come and bring his gun.” Ellice nodded. She stretched out her hand and touched the shaggy yellow head, and in her eyes was infinite pity. Then she mounted the bicycle, and rode like the wind to Buddesby. What she said to Mr. Ralph Vinston, the smart young veterinary surgeon, only she and Mr. Ralph Vinston knew. He had refused definitely and decidedly. “It’ll be a blessing to the place if the beast dies,” he said. “You’d better take his message to Taylor. The gun’s the best remedy for Rundle’s accursed dog, Miss Ellice.” And then the girl had talked to him, had talked with flashing eyes and heaving breast, and the end of it was that Ralph Vinston made a collection of surgical instruments, bandages, and other necessaries, bundled them into his little car, and was away down the road with Ellice in company within ten minutes. CHAPTER XXX “WAITING” Hugh Alston had certainly not attempted anything in the way of picturesque disguise. There was nothing brigandish or romantic about the appearance of the very ordinary-looking young man who put in an appearance at Starden village. Quite what his plans were, what he proposed doing and how he should do it, Hugh had not the slightest idea. He mistrusted Slotman. He experienced exactly the same feelings as would a man who, hearing that there was a savage wild beast let loose where an immense amount of harm may be done, puts a gun under his arm and sallies forth. Even if Joan had not the immense claim on him that she had, he believed he would do exactly what he was doing now. He might be wrong about Slotman, of course. The man might have cleared out and left the country, but Hugh fancied that he had not. Here was a little gold-mine, a young girl, rich and unprotected, a girl of whom this villain believed certain things, which if true would give him a great power over her. That they were not true, Slotman did not know, and he would use his fancied knowledge to obtain his ends and to make Joan’s life unbearable. So Hugh Alston was here in rough, shaggy tweeds, sitting on the self-same seat beside the old stocks where most mornings Ellice Brand came. “I’m here,” he said to himself, and pulled hard on his pipe. “I am here, and here I am going to stay. Sooner or later, unless I am dead out in my reckonings, that brute will turn up, and when he does he’ll find me here ahead of and waiting for him.”