"Precisely," rejoined Hewitt, with the curious expression still in his eyes. "As you say, where is he? And as you said before, who is the dead man? Who is the dead man, and where is Peytral, and why has he gone? Don't you see the possibilities of the case _now_?" Light broke upon me suddenly. I saw what Hewitt meant. Here was a possible explanation of the whole thing--Peytral's recent change of temper, his evening prowlings, his driving away of Bowmore, and lastly, of his disappearance--his flight, as it now seemed probable it was. The case had taken a strange turn, and we looked at one another with meaning eyes. It might be that Hewitt, begged by the unhappy girl we had but just left to prove the innocence of her lover, would by that very act bring her father to the gallows. "Poor girl!" Hewitt murmured, as we stood staring at one another. "Better she continued to believe him dead, as she does! Brett, there's many a good man would be disposed to fling these proofs away for the girl's sake and her mother's, seeing how little there can be to hurt Bowmore. But justice must be done, though the blow fall--as it commonly does--on innocent and guilty together. See, now, I've another idea. Stay on guard while I try." He hurried out toward the farther side of the broad band of trampled ground which surrounded the burnt barn, and began questing to and fro, this way and that, receding farther from me as he went, and nearing the horse-pond and the road. At last he vanished altogether, and left me alone with the burnt barn, my thoughts, and--that dim shape on the barn floor. It was broad day, but I felt none too happy; and I should not have been at all anxious to keep the police watch at night. Perhaps Hewitt had been gone a quarter of an hour, perhaps a little more, when I saw him again, hurrying back and beckoning to me. I went to meet him. "It's right enough," he cried. "I've come on his trail again! There it is, thorn-mark and all, by the roadside, and at a stile--going to Redfield--probably to the station. Come, we'll follow it up! Where's that fool of a policeman? Oh, the muddle they _can_ make when they really try!" "Need we wait for him?" I asked. "Yes, better now, with those proofs lying there; and we must tell him not to be bounced off again as I bounced him off. There he comes!" The heavy figure of the local policeman was visible in the distance, and we shouted and beckoned to hurry him. Agility was no part of that policeman's nature, however, and beyond a sudden agitation of his head and his shoulders, which we guessed to be caused by a dignified spasm of leisurely haste, we saw no apparent acceleration of his pace.