The prisoner’s native genius now worked swiftly with him, and his sole thought was of escape as dusk gathered on Dartmoor. He puzzled his head in vain to see the drift of these doings. It seemed that his gun had been found beside the spot where Adam Thorpe was shot. What human hands could have put it there? He knew of no enemy on earth. Measuring the chances of establishing an _alibi_, he saw that they were small. Search could prove the fact that he had killed pheasants on the previous night, and it was quite possible for him to have killed a man also. He might have shot Thorpe at Middlecott and have spoken to the other keepers at Westcombe afterwards. Indeed, the hours agreed. Then he remembered the shadow that had leapt up out of the heath when he left Hangman’s Hut for the last time. That man it was who had destroyed him; and that man would never be found unless Daniel himself made the discovery. Revolving the matter in his young brains, the poacher believed that his only chance was present escape. Once free and beyond the immediate and awful danger of the moment, Daniel Sweetland trusted that he might establish his innocence and prove the truth. But as a prisoner on trial, with his present scanty knowledge, there appeared no shadow of hope. He looked up at the man who drove and instinctively strained the steel that handcuffed his wrists. Escape seemed a possibility as remote as any miracle. “What be your name, policeman?” asked Daniel, meekly. “You took me very quiet an’ gentle, an’ I thank you for it.” “I’m called Corder--Alfred Corder. I’m the biggest man in the force.” “An’ so strong as you’m big, by the looks of it.” “Well, I’ve yet to meet my master,” said the officer. He had one little vanity, and that was his biceps. “Be you any relation to Alf Corder, the champion of Devon wrestling, then?” “I am the man,” said Mr Corder. “Never been throwed since I was twenty-two; an’ now I’m thirty-four.” Daniel nodded. “A very famous hero. I should have thought you’d make more money wrestling in London than ever you would doing cop’s work to Plymouth.” The giant was interested at this intelligent remark. “I’ve often been tempted to try; but I’m not a man that moves very quick in my mind; though I can shift my sixteen stone of carcase quick enough when it comes to wrestling or fighting. Once my hand gets over a limb, it sticks--like a bull-dog’s teeth. ’Tis the greatest grip known in the West Country--to say it without boasting.” Daniel nodded and relapsed into silence. He was thinking hard now. All his ideas centred on the wild hope to escape. Scheme after scheme sped through his brains. Once a shadowy enterprise actually developed, but he dismissed it as vain. Then Luke Bartley spoke to Mr Corder and suggested another line of action. “This here was the man who had that cute thought that the burglars to Westcombe got away on a motor-car--didn’t he, Gregory?” The inspector admitted it.