330 REMINISCENCES OF A HUNTSMAN. 



I knew that wlioever it was that had been obliged 

 to abandon the load was safe enough housed by 

 that time. 



Having reached a conspicuous place on the hill, 

 whence to signal my man, he came up, having begun 

 to follow me as soon as he guessed what I was after, 

 and, giving him possession of the deer, I returned to 

 the railway, entered a cottage on the line to see if any 

 man was there, and, finding that the owner of the cot- 

 tage near which Tramp's chase had passed was one of 

 the plate-layers I had before observed at work, I took 

 to the rails, followed by Tramp, Thor, and my terriers, 

 as I knew no train was due, and proceeded by that 

 unusual route directly for the three labourers. In 

 nearing them I observed that, instead of looking up 

 to stare at the unwonted trespass, each man became 

 so busy Avith his pickaxe that one would have sup- 

 posed they had been working for a Avager, so, casting 

 the guns to the left arm, I came right upon them, 

 touched one man on the shoulder, collared the second, 

 and told the third I arrested them all as having taken 

 part in a robbery. You might have knocked them all 

 down with a feather, so taken aback were they. I 

 turned up the smock of one who had his on to see if 

 there Avas any blood about him, but none was to be 

 seen, and a glance at their feet shoAved me that 

 every shoe was a larger one than mine ; so, however 

 conversant they might have been Avith the robbery, 

 none of the three had carried the deer. They pro- 

 tested their innocence, and I asserted my belief of 

 their guilty participation, because they Avere in full 

 vicAv of the spot whence the deer had been stolen 

 and where she had been borne across the line ; so 

 I quitted them, Avith an assurance that I Avould that 

 day apply to the inspectors of the line for their dis- 



