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Rh spend five thousand dollars. And not five thousand alone. There was talk that, besides the State, rich John Merchant, in the far south near Martindale, would contribute generously. The cattlemen, the poor fanners of the hills, every man and child in that region of mountains, was ready to look and report, or look and shoot.

But Andrew Lanning, though he guessed at all this and more, kept straight on his course. He did not, indeed, cut straight into the heart of the mountains, for he knew that the districts just above would be thoroughly alarmed. But he had a very good reason for making his strike for liberty in this direction, in spite of the fact that the mountains were lower and easier on either side.

Buried away in the mountains, one stiff day's march, was a trapper whom Uncle Jasper had once befriended. That was many a day long since, but Uncle Jasper had saved the man's life, and he had often told Andrew that, sooner or later, he must come to that trapper's cabin to talk of the old times.

He was bound there now. For, if he could get shelter for three days, the hue and cry would subside. When the mountaineers were certain that he must have gone past them to other places and slipped through their greedy fingers he could ride on in comparative safety. It was an excellent plan. It gave Andrew such a sense of safety, as he trotted the chestnut up a steep grade, that he did not hear another horse, coming in the opposite direction, until the latter was almost upon him. Then, coming about a sharp shoulder of the hill, he almost ran upon a bare-legged boy, who rode without saddle upon the back of a bay mare. The mare leaped catlike to one side, and her little rider clung like a piece of her hide. "You might holler, comin' around a turn," shrilled the boy. And he brought the mare to a halt by jerking the rope around