But these were travelers not to be gain-said--the sheriff of the county and four stout fellows from the town of Colbury, summoned to his aid as a posse, all trooping in as if they owned the little premises. However, the officer permitted himself to unbend a trifle under the influence of a hospitable tender of home-made cherry-bounce, "strong enough to walk from here to Colbury," according to the sheriff's appreciative phrase. He was a portly man, with a rolling, explanatory cant of his burly head and figure toward his interlocutor as he talked. His hair stood up in two tufts above his forehead, one on each side, and he had large, round, grayish eyes and a solemn, pondering expression. To Meddy, staring horror-stricken, he seemed as owlishly wise as he looked while he explained the object of his expedition. "This district have got a poor reputation with the law, Mr. Kettison. Here is this fellow, Royston McGurny, been about here two years, and a reward for five hundred dollars out for his arrest." "That's Roy's fault, Sher'ff, not our'n," leered the glib old man. He, too, had had a sip of the stalwart cherry-bounce. "Roy's in no wise sociable." "It's plumb flying in the face of the law," declared the officer. "If I had a guide, I'd not wait a minute, or if I could recognize the man whenst I viewed him. The constable promised to send a fellow to meet me here,--what's his name?--yes, Smith, Barton Smith,--who will guide us to where he was last glimpsed. I hope to take him alive," he added with an inflection of doubt. Certainly this was a dreary camp-hunt, with all its distasteful sequelae. Purcell, who had no more imagination than a promissory note, silently sulked under the officer's intimation that, being able-bodied men, he would expect the hunters also to ride with him. They were not of his county, and doubted their obligation, but they would not refuse to aid the law. Bygrave, however, realized a "story" in the air, and Seymour was interested in the impending developments; for being a close observer, he had perceived that the girl was in the clutch of some tumultuous though covert agitation. Her blood blazed at fever-heat in her cheeks; her eyes were on fire; every muscle was tense; and her brain whirled. To her the crisis was tremendous. This was the result of her unwarranted interference. Who was she, indeed, that she should seek to command the march of events and deploy sequences? Her foolish manoeuvering had lured this innocent man to ruin, capture, anguish, and death. No warning could he have; the window was opaque with the corrugations of the rain-fall on the streaming panes, and set too high to afford him a glimpse from without. And, oh, how he would despise the traitor that she must needs seem to be! She had not a moment for reflection, for counsel, for action. Already the signal,--he was prompt at the tryst,--the sharp, crystalline vibration of the tap on the glass!