“I didn’t know it; it was a chance guess.”

“Poor lads, they are lost. And good lads they were, too.”

“Were you actually going yonder to tell on them?”

He didn’t quite know how to take that; but he said, hesitatingly:

“Ye-s.”

“Then I think you are a damned scoundrel!”

It made him as glad as if I had called him an angel.

“Say the good words again, brother!

for surely ye mean that ye would not betray me an I failed of my duty.”

“Duty? There is no duty in the matter, except the duty to keep still and let those men get away. They’ve