Page:Harry Castlemon - The Steel Horse.djvu/376

 but up the stream on whose right-hand bank the boys were encamped. There could be no doubt of it, for there was no longer any crunching of gravel under the heels of their heavy boots, but the bushes snapped and swayed, and the voices came more distinctly to their ears. Matt Coyle was the one who did most of the talking. He did not seem to take his failure to wreck the train so very much to heart, but he bewailed the loss of his dogs, whose good qualities could not be enumerated by any one man, and asked who would warn him now if the officers came to his shanty some dark night to arrest him.

"They are coming this way as sure as the world," whispered Roy, drawing his feet closer to him and placing an elbow on each knee so that he could have a dead rest with his rifle. "Why don't the fools stick to the road? It's easier walking there than it is in the bushes."

"This is no doubt a short cut to their hiding-place," replied Joe. "Stand together, fellows, and we'll show them what we are made of. We'll give them fair warning, and