For two hours after sunset it had all been silent and brooding, and then
two figures appeared on the bank of the great river. A canoe was softly
and hastily pushed out from its hidden shelter under the overhanging
bank, and was noiselessly paddled out to midstream, dropping down the
current meanwhile.
It was Jenny Long and the man who must get to Bindon. They had waited
till nine o'clock, when the moon was high and full, to venture forth.
Then Dingley had dropped from her bedroom window, had joined her under
the trees, and they had sped away, while the man's hunters, who had come
suddenly, and before Jenny could get him away into the woods, were
carousing inside. These had tracked their man back to Tom Sanger's house,
and at first they were incredulous that Jenny and her uncle had not seen
him. They had prepared to search the house, and one had laid his finger
on the latch of her bedroom door; but she had flared out with such anger
that, mindful of the supper she had already begun to prepare for them,
they had desisted, and the whiskey-jug which the old man brought out
distracted their attention.
One of their number, known as the Man from Clancey's, had, however, been
outside when Dingley had dropped from the window, and had seen him from a
distance.
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