Part 21 (2/2)

”There's anither road turns aff and rins north awa' by Bellingham”

Foster frowned, because this was the road he meant to take next day, and if his pursuers did so now, it would be because they expected him to make for the Garth They were, however, in front, where he would sooner have them than behind, and he set off down the valley for Hexha round the tall dark ely picturesque; the ancient Moot Hall and market square invited his interest, but he shrank fro about the streets in the dark Now he had Grahaingsred hotel

He sent Pete to an inn farther on, because it seeh he would have liked to know the man was about After dinner, he sat in a quiet nook in the sloved hand out of sight, until it was tio to bed

XVIII

SPADEADAM WASTE

About eleven o'clock nextdown on a broken wall lighted his pipe In front, the undulating h tableland to the west To the south, a deep hollow, the bottom of which he could not see, marked the course of the Tyne Pluuidly across the sky, for the river flowed past well-cultivated fields, old-fashi+oned villages, and rows of sooty cottages that clustered round pithead towers Human activity had set its stamp upon the sheltered dale, alike in scenes of quiet pastoral beauty and industrial ugliness

It was different to the north, where the shaggy es There were no white farmsteads here; one looked across a lonely waste that had sheltered the wolf and the lurking Pict when the Roe to outlaws and cattle thieves Foster's way led through this desolation, but his map indicated a road of a kind that ran north to the head of LiddelHe e into the wilds

Since Grahaone to Liddesdale, with the object of finding if Foster was at the Garth If he did not come back by the road he had taken, he would watch the railway that roughly followed it across the moors from Hexhaerous for hio near the Garth at all Nevertheless he meant to see Alice before he looked for Daly, and he turned to Pete

”On the whole, I'd sooner keep off the road Is there a way across the heath to the upper Liddel?”

”I wouldna' say there's a way,” Pete answered with a dry smile ”But I can take ye ower the Spadeadah traiveling Then I'll no' proht, an' if there's et there”

They struck across a rushy field, crept through a ragged hedge, and caed into the heath A green bank and a straggling line of stones, so two or three feet high, presently stretched across their path, and Foster stopped for a few moments The bank and moat-like hollow he looked down upon marked the _vallu, apparently undetachable, the _reat raher and less daed farther west and would have liked to follow it, but he had so else to think about than antiquities

The heath got rougher when they left the wall Spongy round began to rise Looking at the sun, Foster saw they were not taking as northerly a line as he had expected, but the back of a bold ridge rose between them and the west and he supposed Pete meant to follow its other side They stopped to eat the food they had brought where a strea the wall of peaty soil behind them, was pleasantly warray shadows streaked the wide, broaste

There was no house in sight and only in one place a few scattered dots that looked like sheep Getting out his h neck where the Pennine range slopes down toin Canada wilder or more desolate than this bleak tableland

In the afternoon they toiled up the rise he had noticed in the distance, winding in and out a soft places and hummocks of the peat, but when they came to the top there was not the dip to a valley he had expected The ground was rougher than before, and thein heathy undulations By degrees, however, it became obvious that they had crossed the water-shed and were descending, for streams that increased in size crossed their path

So far, none were deep, but the ravines they ran through began to searadual slope and Foster understood Pete's reback after a tiainst the sky, and the next ravine they came to ard to climb dohile he et to the knees when he crossed the burn A mile farther on, he reached another that orse and they had to work back along the cru sides of its channel to find a place to cross

After this their progress was marked by erratic curves, and Foster was soon splashed with black peat-reen slie on its other side, and picked their way carefully between clumps of rushes and curious round holes filled with dark-colored water The ground was very soft and walking beca course and Foster, although getting tired, did not lag behind

They were so and when they reached the foot of the rise, which ran in a long line between thelow that seeh slope was dark and the hu their distinctness Foster felt so across the waste after darkness fell, and doggedly kept level with Pete as they went up the hill obliquely, struggling through tangled grass and wiry heath When they reached the sue of the tableland but soh it was broken by rolling elevations, the ground ran gradually down to an extensive plain where white ered on the horizon, with a half- points showed, faint and far off, in the valley

”Yon,” said Pete, ”is Bewcastle dale, and I ken where we'll find a welco we'll keep the big flow in our left han'”

Instead of descending towards the distant farmsteads, he followed the summit of the rise, and Foster, who understood that a flow is a soft bog, plodded after hih, and hid the stones he now and then stuainst, but it was better to hurry than be left with a long distance to cover in the dark

Indeed, as he caught his feet in the wiry stems and fell into holes, he frankly admitted the absurdity of his adventure, a sense of which ahly civilized country, there were railways and telegraph lines not far off, and he was lurking like an ancient outlaw as! It looked as if therehis difficulties, but he could not see one Anyhow, he had determined to save his partner, and now, if his plans were hazy and not very wise, it was too late to e

After a ti into a clu slope on their right hand

Foster's sight was good, but he admitted that the poacher's was better, because it was a round for alarh descent was dark and it was only by degrees he distinguished so that moved across the heath, below and some distance away Then he realized that it was a ht be shepherds or sportsnificant that there were two and they see obliquely, as if to cut his line of march He ree their figures ht

”It's suspicious, but I wouldn't like to say they're on our trail,” he remarked