Sure enough, the stern of a small boat stuck out into the deep, broad river, the bow being hidden by the bushes.
"Both of 'em hurried up the hill over yender, an' that's the last I seen of 'em," concluded the lad.
Anderson Crow and his man-hunters stared helplessly at the broad, swift river, and then looked at each other in despair. There was no boat in sight except the murderer's, and there was no bridge within ten miles.
While they were growling a belated detachment of hunters came up to the river bank greatly agitated.
"A telephone message has just come to town sayin' there would be a thousand dollars reward," announced one of the late arrivals; and instantly there was an imperative demand for boats.
"There's an old raft upstream a-ways," said the boy, "but I don't know how many it will kerry. They use it to pole corn over from Mr. Knoblock's farm to them big summer places in the hills up yender."
"Is it sound?" demanded Anderson Crow.
"Must be or they wouldn't use it," said Squires sarcastically. "Where is it, kid?"
The boy led the way up the river bank, the whole company trailing behind.
"Sh! Not too loud," cautioned Anderson Crow. Fifteen minutes later a wobbly craft put out to sea, manned by a picked crew of determined citizens of Tinkletown. When they were in midstream a loud cry came from the bank they had left behind. Looking back, Anderson Crow saw excited men dashing about, most of them pointing excitedly up into the hills across the river. After a diligent search the eyes of the men on the raft saw what it was that had created such a stir at the base of Crow's Cliff.
"There he is!" cried Anderson Crow in awed tones. There was no mistaking the identity of the coatless man on the hillside. A dozen men recognised him as the man they were after. Putting his hands to his mouth, Anderson Crow bellowed in tones that savoured more of fright than command:
"Say!"
There was no response.
"Will you surrender peaceably?" called the captain of the craft.
There was a moment of indecision on the part of the fugitive. He looked at his companion, and she shook her head—they all saw her do it.
Then he shouted back his reply.
CHAPTER III
The Culprits
"Ship ahoy!" shouted the coatless stranger between his palms.
"Surrender or we'll fill you full of lead!" called Anderson Crow.
"Who are you—pirates?" responded the fugitive with a laugh that chilled the marrow of the men on the raft.
"I'll show you who we are!" bellowed Anderson Crow. "Send her ashore, boys, fast. The derned scamp sha'n't escape us. Dead er alive, we must have him."
As they poled toward the bank the woman grasped the man by the arm, dragging him back among the trees. It was observed by all that she was greatly terrified. Moreover, she was exceedingly fair to look upon—young, beautiful, and a most incongruous companion for the bloody rascal who had her in his power. The raft bumped against the reedy bank, and Anderson Crow was the first man ashore.
"Come on, boys; follow me! See that your guns are all right! Straight up the hill now, an' spread out a bit so's we can surround him!" commanded he in a high treble.
"'But supposin' he surrounds us," panted a cautious pursuer, half way up the hill.
"That's what we've got to guard against," retorted Anderson Crow. The posse bravely swept up to and across the greensward; but the fox was gone: There was no sight or sound of him to be had. It is but just to say that fatigue was responsible for the deep breath that came from each member of the pursuing party.
"Into the woods after him!" shouted Anderson Crow. "Hunt him down like a rat!"
In the meantime a coatless young man and a most enticing young woman were scampering off among the oaks and underbrush, consumed by excitement and no small degree of apprehension.
"They really seem to be in earnest about it, Jack," urged the young woman insistently, to offset his somewhat sarcastic comments.
"How the dickens do you suppose they got onto me?" he groaned. "I thought the tracks were beautifully covered. No one suspected, I'm sure."
"I told you, dear, how it would turn out," she cried in a panic-stricken voice.
"Good heavens, Marjory, don't turn against me! It all seemed so easy and so sure, dear. There wasn't a breath of suspicion. What are we to do? I'll stop and fight the whole bunch if you'll just let go my arm."
"No, you won't, Jack Barnes!" she exclaimed resolutely, her pretty blue eyes wide with alarm. "Didn't you hear them say they'd fill you full of lead? They had guns and everything. Oh, dear! oh, dear! isn't it horrid?"
"The worst of it is they've cut us off from the river," he said miserably. "If I could have reached the boat ahead of them they never could have caught us. I could distance that old raft in a mile."
"I know you could, dear," she cried, looking with frantic admiration upon his broad shoulders and brawny bare arms. "But it is out of the question now."
"Never mind, sweetheart; don't let it fuss you so. It will turn out all right, I know it will."
"Oh, I can't run any farther," she gasped despairingly.
"Poor little chap! Let me carry you?"
"You big ninny!"
"We are at least three miles from your house, dear, and surrounded by deadly perils. Can you climb a tree?"
"I can—but I won't!" she refused flatly, her cheeks very red.
"Then I fancy we'll have to keep on in this manner. It's a confounded shame—the whole business. Just as I thought everything was going so smoothly, too. It was all arranged to a queen's taste—nothing was left undone. Bracken was to meet us at his uncle's boathouse down there, and—good heavens, there was a shot!"
The sharp crack of a rifle broke upon the still, balmy air, as they say in the "yellow-backs," and the fugitives looked at each other with suddenly awakened dread.
"The fools!" grated the man.
"What do they mean?" cried the breathless girl, very white in the face.
"They are trying to frighten us, that's all. Hang it! If I only knew the lay of the land. I'm completely lost, Marjory. Do you know precisely where we are?"
"Our home is off to the north about three miles. We are almost opposite Crow's Cliff—the wildest part of the country. There are no houses along this part of the river. All of the summer houses are farther up or on the other side. It is too hilly here. There is a railroad off there about six miles. There isn't a boathouse or fisherman's hut nearer than two miles. Mr. Bracken keeps his boat at the point—two miles south, at least."
"Yes; that's where we were to have gone—by boat. Hang it all! Why did we ever leave the boat? You can never scramble through all this brush to Bracken's place; it's all I can do. Look at my arms! They are scratched to—"
"Oh, dear! It's dreadful, Jack. You poor fellow, let me—"
"We