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“What shall we do next?” asked Morton.

“Wait till it is dark enough to creep across the road at the bridge.”

“And if they come back before then?”

“Fight them,” abruptly answered Hemlock.

In the narrow gorge where they lay the gloom quickly gathered, and it soon grew so dark that Morton’s fears as to the searching-party returning were relieved. When the last streak of day had disappeared, Hemlock led the way, and they crept as quickly as the nature of the ground would permit down the river, whose noisy brawl blotted out the sound they made.

Coming out at a pond, where the water had been dammed to drive a small mill, Hemlock stopped and listened. The road with its bridge was directly in front, and it was likely guards were there posted. As they watched, the door of a house opened, and a man came out with a lantern. It was the miller going to the mill. As he swung the light its beams shone along the road, failing to reveal a sentinel. When he passed into the mill, Hemlock led the way under the shade of the trees that fringed the mill-pond, crossed the road, and down into the rocky bed of the stream on the other side. Pausing to let Morton gain his breath after the run, he said in his ear, “We are safe now and can wait for the moon.”