Jim lifted his head, his muzzle and paws loaded with fresh earth, and gazed at his master for a moment. Then, with evident reluctance, he obeyed. But he kept looking back over his shoulder at the big white stone, as if he hated to leave it. "There's a lot o' ordinary pup left in that there dawg yet," explained Blackstock apologetically to the game-warden. "There ain't a dawg ever lived that wouldn't want to dig out a woodchuck," answered Stephens. III The black-whiskered stranger had been overtaken by his pursuers about ten miles beyond Brine's Rip, sleeping away the heat of the day under a spreading birch tree a few paces off the road. He was sleeping soundly--too soundly indeed, as thought the experienced constable, for a man with murder on his soul. But when he was roughly aroused and seized, he seemed so terrified that his captors were all the more convinced of his guilt. He made no resistance as he was being hurried along the road, only clinging firmly to his black leather case, and glancing with wild eyes from side to side as if nerving himself to a desperate dash for liberty. When he had gathered, however, a notion of what he was wanted for, to the astonishment of his captors, his terror seemed to subside--a fact which the constable noted narrowly. He steadied his voice enough to ask several questions about the murder--questions to which reply was curtly refused. Then he walked on in a stolid silence, the ruddy colour gradually returning to his face. A couple of miles before reaching Brine's Rip, the second search party came in sight, the Deputy Sheriff at the head of it and the shaggy black form of Jim close at his heels. With a savage curse Hawker sprang forward, and about half the party with him, as if to snatch the prisoner from his captors and take instant vengeance upon him. But Blackstock was too quick for them. The swiftest sprinter in the county, he got to the other party ahead of the mob and whipped around to face them, with one hand on the big revolver at his hip and Jim showing his teeth beside him. The constable and his party, hugely astonished, but confident that Blackstock's side was the right one to be on, closed protectingly around the prisoner, whose eyes now almost bulged from his head. "You keep right back, boys," commanded the Deputy in a voice of steel. "The law will look after this here prisoner, if he's the guilty one." [Illustration: "'You keep right back, boys,' commanded the Deputy in a voice of steel."] "Fur as we kin see, there ain't no 'if' about it," shouted Hawker, almost frothing at the mouth. "That's the man as done it, an' we're agoin' to string 'im up fer it right now, for fear he might git off some way atween the jedges an' the lawyers. You keep out of it now, Tug." About half the crowd surged forward with Hawker in front. Up came Blackstock's gun. "Ye know me, boys," said he. "Keep back."