Page:Redcoat (1927).djvu/213

 aloud. "The hounds will pick up the track when you jump off."

But Bud had forgotten the Leaning Pine, as that curious tree was called on the Holcome farm. It was a queer pine which stood against the wall about twenty-five rods above the barway. It leaned so sharply that everyone had wondered why the wind did not blow it down, but it had stood wind and weather for perhaps a hundred years.

In a very few seconds Redcoat had covered the distance to the tree, and without even breaking his trot, he scrambled up the rough bark and in five seconds' time was completely hidden from the boy's curious gaze in the bushy top of the tree. Bud burst into a roar of laughter. The ruse was complete. The wall would give off little scent and the hunters would never dream of looking in the tree for anything but a racoon. Then a great sense of Bud's own responsibility came to him. He was to be the traitor. He was the one who would finally spill Redcoat's blood and give the Meadowdale Club his much coveted brush. Then he remembered