"Come on," said Mary. "That's him. We must follow him, Dickie... Somebody has got to look after him, else he'll do something awful."

So without further words they left the plateau and started up the forbidding valley. Macbeth gave up the unequal chase - his legs were much too short for rabbit-catching - and trotted sedately at Mary's heels, but although they went as fast as they could, they did not see Uncle Micah again until they, in turn, reached the rock. From the top they could see far up the valley and could see, too, the shape of the black rocks of the Devil's Chair looming high over the wild countryside. To their left towered the steep cliff-like sides of the Dingle, gleaming brightly in the moonlight. As they paused, tired now and rather breathless, Mary pointed ahead, and for a brief moment they glimpsed the fugitive crossing a path of turf farther up the valley. He was walking steadily and rather mechanically, and, as far as they could see, he looked neither to right nor to left.

"Gosh!" said Dickie. "He's in a hurry, twin. Looks as if he's going right up to the Chair. Bags we don't go up there."

"Pooh!" answered Mary. "I'm not afraid of that old Chair. You know we're not, Dickie!... But I do want to know where he's going."

"Yes, twin. I do, too. I always want to know things. I think maybe he's got a secret in his life."

"Yes, Dickie. A dark secret, too. And his heart is breaking. I know it is, Dickie, and we've got to help him. Nobody else can help him, I believe, 'cept us."

"All right, Mary, only I don't feel like that at all. I think really that he's a silly, grumpy old man, and I don't know why we've got to see where he goes... and I'm jolly hungry," he added inconsequently.

Mary looked shocked, but said nothing. This was one of the times when Dickie accepted her leadership without question, and she knew that although he would not admit it, he would now rather be back in his sleeping-bag at H.Q.2. Just for a moment, she, too, felt a sharp pang at the remembrance of Peter's sleeping face in the moon-light as she had seen it a few hours before, but, for some odd and unexplained reason, she felt that she had a job to do, and that she would not turn back until this mystery of Uncle Micah had been solved.

So without a word - and largely because she did not quite trust herself to speak with a steady voice - she led the way down the farther side of the rock till the track ran by the stream again.

Now the wind strengthened and they could hear it moaning among the rocks up by the Chair. It suddenly got darker.