"Halt here!" said Sir John, interrupting the musings of his brother; and from where they stood, they could dimly make out the extent of the long open space, with fir plantations on either side, a patch of alder in the damp, boggy space where they stood, and about two hundred yards away, right at the top of the slight slope, there was something black to be seen against the sky--something black, that by daylight would have resolved itself into a slope of tall firs. This was the part that the poachers were expected to traverse, and the three parties were therefore stationed according to the plan, and for three hours they waited in utter silence, hidden in the plantations and the alder clump. Sir John had begun to mutter at the end of the first hour, to grumble at the end of the second, and he was growling fiercely at the end of the third, when the keeper suddenly started up. "What is it?" said Sir John, as the dog uttered a low whine. "They've circumvented us, Sir John," replied the keeper, angrily. "They've trapped me into the belief that they were coming here to-night, and they've been netting Barrows, I'll be bound." "Confound the scoundrels!" cried Sir John. "What an idiot you must have been!" "Yes, Sir John, I was," said the keeper, calmly; "but they won't have more than finished, and they've got to get home. I may be too many for them yet." Hastily summoning the party on his left, the keeper led them to the weary, cramped party on his right. "This way; quick!" he said; and the sluggish blood began to flow once more with the excitement, as he led them rapidly along the meadow, right up the fir slope through the trees, and out into the lane on the other side. Here he paused and listened for a few moments, and then started off once more to where another clump of firs made the aspect of the night more dark. Beneath the trees it was blacker, but the keeper well knew his way, and at the end of a few minutes he had spread out his forces some fifteen yards apart, with a whispered word to be on the alert. "They're sure to come through here," he whispered, "Down on the first man you see. We shall hear you, and will come and help." General like, the keeper had selected the middle of the line for himself, and placed the trustiest men near where he believed that the poachers would come, Rolph being on his right, the major and Sir John upon his left. "They won't come--it's all a hoax," said Sir John, who was tired of waiting, and the words were hardly out of his lips before the mastiff uttered a muttered growl, and directly after there was the tramp of feet over the pine needles which, as it came nearer, told plainly of there being a strongish gang at work.