"You haven't accepted my price, yet, Neil," he replied quietly. "I asked
you if you'd--be--a sort of brother--"
Neil sprang to his side with a fervor that knocked the pipe out of his
hand.
"I swear that! And if Marion doesn't--"
Suddenly he jerked himself into a listening attitude.
"Hark!"
For a moment the two ceased to breathe. The sound had come to them both,
low, distant. After it there fell a brief hush. Then again, as they
stared questioningly into each other's eyes, it rolled faintly into the
swamp--the deep, far baying of a hound.
"Ah!" exclaimed Neil, drawing back with a deep breath. "I thought they
would do it!"
"The bloodhounds!"
Horror, not fear, sent an involuntary shiver through Nathaniel.
"They can't reach us!" assured Neil. There was the glitter of triumph in
his eyes. "This was to have been my way of escape after I killed Strang.
A quarter of a mile deeper in the swamp I have a canoe." He picked up
the gun and box and began forcing his way through the dense alder along
the edge of the stream. "I'd like to stay and murder those dogs," he
called back, "but it wouldn't be policy."
For a time the crashing of their bodies through the dense growth of the
swamp drowned all other sound. Five minutes later Neil stopped on the
edge of a wide bog. The hounds were giving fierce tongue in the forest
on their left and their nearness sent Nathaniel's hand to his pistol.
Neil saw the movement and laughed.
"Don't like the sound, eh?" he said.
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