Widnes Examiner. — 1903-07-25 (Widnes, Cheshire, England)

CHAPTER. X. WHAT TREDEGAR SAW IN THE WOODS.  THE bog of Gogerddan was no easy. place for a man to walk on after the sun had set. For the most part it was dry and firm in the summer, but here and there were a few treacherous spots where a man might sink in up to his waist, or even further. The chief obstacles, however, to a journey across it were the innumerable dykes which traversed it in every direction, and to which it owed its comparative solidity. Some of these were not more than three feet in width, but others were quite eight feet from bank to bank, and even in the daytime were not pleasant. things to jump from a rough and yielding take-off. At night even the smallest was a pitfall. The water in them was brown and evil smelling: Its depth varied with the state of the tide in the estuary. but at the bottom lay a consistent four feet of soft, liquid peat, and woe betide the unfortunate man who fell heavily into , its treacherous slime. A single path of hard, firm stone and equipped with plank bridges ran across the southern side of the bog from mountain to sea. But Tredegar was. two miles from this, and, in any .case, it was not the route for a man who wished to escape observation. It was, however, a fairly light •night, though a faint mist had rise,n in the sky and somewhat dimmed the brilliance of the moon. Tredegar slipped quietly out of the wood. He made his way with difficulty through a small forest of bulrushes. sinking up to his ankles in water. When he had struggled through this, he emerged cautiously on the open bog, and -felt the coarse, hard heather tufts beneath his feet. He listened attentively, and heard voices in the distance. A few lights were moving to and fro about half a mile away. Then he' heard the sound of a gun or rifle. He thanked his lucky stars he was not one of the search-party. They had come out to shoot something, and the veriest tyro would, be sure to try and get in a shot somehow. Some would *blaze away at long ridges of grass, at stray sheep, at hillocks of peat. Others, more :liscerning, but more dangerous, would mark down their fellows, and there would be accidents. Tredegar knew the spirit of an expedition of this sort undertaken by simple country folk—the eagerness born of fear, the desire for glory, the recklessness of war without its discipline. He made his way in a straight line for Garth. He had no very clear idea in his mind what he was going to do. At first he thought of joining the main force.' He could scarcely be taken for the murderer at close quarters. The latter, so Walroyd had said, had been clothed in brown. He was unmistakabiy dressed in blue, and carried his two strings of onions. But on second thoughts he concluded that the risk was a fcolish one, even in the darkness, and even though everyone was too excited to note the presence of a stranger. He wished to be in the hunt himself, but he decided to hunt alone. At. least, he had one advantage over the others. He had slept most of the day, and %sus prepared to stay awake all the night. He hurriedly sketched Out a plan of action. He would hunt till daybrcax on the bog and in the xsoods on the far side of it. There was a faint chance of his meeting the _murderer,  I . and, it not—well, he had not wasted his time. He was bound to keep moving. Even an ~; August night was .not good for a man who had just recovered.. from rheumatic fever. With the dawn he would Push a lit•tlA filril."