Page:Tomlinson--The rider of the black horse.djvu/338

322 these things were of minor importance compared with the puzzling part which Hannah Nott and her mother had had in the detection of the traitor.

Where was Hannah now? And what had the leader of the band, whose very name he did not know, implied in his statement concerning her and his son? The questions were troublous ones, but the young express was aroused from his reverie by the sound of a groan that seemed to issue from the bushes on the opposite side of the road.

Startled by the unexpected sound, Robert leaped to his feet, and for the first time realized that he had not secured his pistol when he had left the house where he had been seized. Even then he felt that he was not altogether to blame, for Hannah had removed his weapon when she had taken Josh's, and he had no knowledge where they had been placed.

He was listening intently for the startling sound to be repeated, but several minutes elapsed and the silence was unbroken save by a snort of his horse and the metallic noises of the locusts. And yet he could not persuade himself that he had been deceived, for the groan was by no means faint or indistinct.