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.