The Deputy-Sheriff of Nipsiwaska County had spent half an hour at the telephone. In the backwoods the telephone wires go everywhere. In that half-hour every settlement, every river-crossing, every lumber-camp, and most of the wide-scattered pioneer cabins had been warned of the flight of the thief, Dan Black, nicknamed Black Dan, and how, in the effort to secure his escape, he had shot and wounded the Deputy-Sheriff's big black dog whose cleverness on the trail he had such cause to dread¹. As Tug² Blackstock, the Deputy-Sheriff, came out of the booth he asked after Jim.  
"Oh, Black Dan's bullet broke no bones that time," replied the village doctor, who had tended the dog's wound as carefully as if his patient had been the Deputy himself. "It's a biggish hole, but Jim'll be all right in a few days, never fear."
 
Blackstock looked relieved.
 
"Ye don't seem to be worryin' much about Black Dan's gittin' away, Tug," grumbled³ Long Jackson, who was not unnaturally⁴ sore over the loss of his money.
 
"No, I ain't worryin' much," agreed the Deputy, with a confident grin, "now I know Jim ain't goin' to lose a leg. As for Black Dan's gittin' away, well, I've got me own notions about that. I've 'phoned all over the three counties, and given warnin' to every place he kin⁵ stop for a bite or a bed. He can't cross the river to get over the Border, for I've sent word to hev every bridge an' ferry watched. Black Dan's cunnin' enough to know I'd do jest that, first thing, so he won't waste his time tryin' the river. He'll strike right back into the big timber, countin' on the start he's got of us, now he's put Jim out of the game. But I guess I kin trail him myself—now I know what I'm trailin'—pretty nigh as well as Jim could. I've took note of his tracks, and there ain't another pair o' boots in Brine's Rip Mills like them he's wearin'."
 
"And when air ye goin' to start?" demanded Long Jackson, still inclined to be resentful.
 
"Right now," replied Blackstock cheerfully, "soon as ye kin git guns and stuff some crackers⁶ an' cheese into yer pockets. I'll want you to come along, MacDonald, an' you, Long, an' Saunders, an' Big Andy, as my posse. Meet me in fifteen minutes at the store an' I'll hev Zeb Smith swear ye in for the job. If Black Dan wants to do any shootin', it's jest as well to hev every thin' regular."
 
There were not a few others among the mill-hands and the villagers who had lost by Black Dan's cunning pilferings, and who would gladly have joined in the hunt. In the backwoods not even a murderer—unless his victim has been a woman or a child—is hunted down with so much zest⁷ as a thief. But the Deputy did not like too much volunteer assistance, and was apt to suppress it with scant⁸ ceremony. So his choice of a posse was accepted without protest or comment, and the chosen four slipped off to get their guns.
 
As Tug Blackstock had foreseen, the trail of the fugitive⁹ was easily picked up. Confident in his powers as a runaway¹⁰, Black Dan's sole object, at first, had been to gain as much lead as possible over the expected pursuit, and he had run straight ahead, leaving a trail which any one of Blackstock's posse—with the exception, perhaps, of Big Andy—could have followed with almost the speed and precision of the Deputy himself.
 
There had been no attempt at concealment¹¹. About five miles back, however, in the heavy woods beyond the head of the Lake, it appeared that the fugitive had dropped into a walk and begun to go more circumspectly¹². The trail now grew so obscure that the other woodsmen would have had difficulty in deciphering it at all, and they were amazed at the ease and confidence with which Blackstock followed it up, hardly diminishing his stride.
 
"Tug is sure some trailer," commented Jackson, his good humour now quite restored by the progress they were making.
 
"Jim couldn't 'a' done no better himself," declared Big Andy, the Oromocto man.
 
And just then Blackstock came abruptly¹³ to a halt, and held up his hand for his followers¹⁴ to stop.
 
"Steady, boys. Stop right where ye are, an' don't step out o' yer tracks," he commanded.
 
The four stood rigid¹⁵, and began searching the ground all about them with keen, initiated¹⁶ eyes.
 
"Oh, I've got him, so fur, all right," continued Blackstock, pointing to a particularly clear and heavy impression of a boot-sole close behind his own feet. "But here it stops. It don't appear to go any further."
 
He knelt down to examine the footprint.
 
"P'raps he's doubled back on his tracks, to throw us off," suggested Saunders, who was himself an expert on the trails of all the wild creatures.
 
"No," replied Blackstock, "I've watched out for that sharp."
 
"P'raps he's give a big jump to one side or t'other, to break his trail," said MacDonald.
 
"No," said Blackstock with decision, "nor that neither, Mac. This here print is even. Ef he'd jumped to one side or the other, it would be dug in on that side, and ef he'd jumped forrard, it would be hard down at the toe. It fair beats me!"
 
Stepping carefully, foot by foot, he examined the ground minutely over a half circle of a dozen yards to his front. He sent out his followers—all but Big Andy, who, being no trailer............