At the edge of the timber the night wind bore to his ears a sound that again halted him dead in his tracks. The bells of Oakdale were ringing—ringing wildly, furiously, as they might ring to arouse the villagers to battle with a conflagration. Peal upon peal vibrated through the night air, and their clanging strokes stabbed the miserable boy like dagger thrusts. “I know what it means!” he half panted, half sobbed. “They’re turning the whole town out to hunt me down! I’m alone, alone, with everybody against me! What chance have I got? Well, they’ll have to catch me before I give up.” The woods swallowed him; he was gone. The bells continued to fling forth their wild alarm. As if wondering at it, and curious to know what it was all about, the silvery moon peered through a break in the clouds, flooding the open space with its light. But in the woods through which Charley Shultz staggered on it was dark. In his heart it was darker still. CHAPTER XIX THE APPARITION IN THE WOODS. In the midst of the woods Shultz stopped to rest, seating himself upon a log against which he had stumbled. The clouds having dispersed, the moon was silvering the tree-tops above his head, but it had not yet risen high enough to cast its light upon the ground of the little glade. On every hand were the mysterious night shadows of the woods. The boy’s legs quivered as he sat there, grateful for this respite, although he felt that time was precious and he should waste no moments. No longer could he hear the village bells; they had ceased to ring, and he was glad of that. It was a melancholy and terrible thing to feel himself an outcast and a fugitive from justice, practically with the hand of mankind in general turned against him. He had read stories of daring fugitives in similar positions, and always the fugitives had seemed enfolded by a glamor of romance, which had almost made him long to pass through such an experience; but, now that the experience was his, it held no glamor, no single feature of allurement or romance. It was simply a horrible situation, to be freed from which he felt that he would willingly give up years of his life. That he could escape, he still had a faint hope; but it was faint indeed, and, had he heeded sober judgment, he would have put it aside as something false and deceptive and merely adding to his suspense and torture. With the telephone and telegraph, the surrounding country could be warned and every loophole stopped. With the bulk of the villagers searching for him, it was simply a matter of time before he would be run down. “I’ll never give up,” he kept telling himself; “I’ll never give up till they catch me.”