They found Brannon there, waiting with the others for the slight occasional sounds overhead to cease, as they dared not make the desired attack with their intended victims awake and prepared to meet and repel it. But they waited in vain; our travellers hearing men's voices, conversing in subdued tones in the room below, understood for what they were waiting, and not wishing for a fight, took care to let them know that they had not all succumbed to sleep. In fact the hunter, listening intently with his ear to a crack in the floor, heard the woman say, "Not yet, they're not asleep yet, for I hear 'em movin'." "Ye do, eh?" he growled in undertone, "well, ye'll likely keep on a hearin' it till them he wolves o' yourn goes back to their den in the woods." At last as a faint streak of dawn began to show itself above the eastern horizon, the ruffians drew close together and held a whispered consultation, the result of which was the decision to give up attacking here, leave at once, and hastening on ahead of the travellers, post themselves at a certain spot favorable for an ambuscade, where they would play the highwayman, "relieving the fellers o' their plunder," as they expressed it, and letting them go with their lives if they were wise enough not to show fight, but taking Clendenin prisoner for the sake of slaking Brannon's thirst for revenge and obtaining Lyttleton's offered reward. The first part of their plan was at once put into execution, and with no small sense of relief our travellers heard them depart. "Up, boys, now's our time," said the hunter; "day's breakin', the thieves has left for the present, and we'd best git out o' this instanter." The others being of the same opinion, they hastily gathered up their guns and saddle-bags, unbarred the door, and as nearly in a body as might be, the hunter taking the lead, descended the step-ladder to the room below. The woman nodding in her chair beside the smouldering embers of the fire, was its only occupant. She started up, saying, "Why you're airly, ain't ye? I hadn't thought of gettin' breakfast yet." "Never mind, we don't want any, mother," said Johnson dryly. "Why, ye ain't goin' a'ready? ye'd better stay for breakfast. I'll not be long gettin' it." "No," they answered, "we must start at once." "Ye didn't sleep much, I think," she remarked sullenly, following them to the door. "How do you know?" queried Johnson, giving her a sharp look. "Oh, I was up myself, and I heard ye movin' around." Clendenin stepped back to enquire, and pay her charges for the entertainment of the party, and thought she eyed him strangely during that transaction, with a sort of repressed eagerness and cupidity, and somewhat as if she were trying to estimate his strength, and calculate whether she dare measure it with her own, and would gain anything thereby.