The second man made low reply. "He's right here." He motioned
reassuringly toward the hole.
When the third head appeared, a soft smile of glee came upon each face,
and the mute group exchanged expressive glances.
When they all stood together, free from this tragic barn, they breathed
a long sigh that was contemporaneous with another smile and another
exchange of glances.
One of the men tiptoed to a knothole and peered into the barn. The
sentry was at that moment speaking. "Yes, we know 'em all. There isn't a
house in this region that we don't know who is in it most of the time.
We collar 'em once in a while--like we did you. Now, that house out
yonder, we----"
The man suddenly left the knothole and returned to the others. Upon his
face, dimly discerned, there was an indication that he had made an
astonishing discovery. The others questioned him with their eyes, but he
simply waved an arm to express his inability to speak at that spot. He
led them back toward the hill, prowling carefully. At a safe distance
from the barn he halted and as they grouped eagerly about him, he
exploded in an intense undertone: "Why, that--that's Cap'n Sawyer they
got in yonder."
"Cap'n Sawyer!" incredulously whispered the other men.
But the girl had something to ask. "How did you get out of that feed
box?" He smiled. "Well, when you put us in there, we was just in a
minute when we allowed it wasn't a mighty safe place, and we allowed
we'd get out. And we did. We skedaddled 'round and 'round until it
'peared like we was going to get cotched, and then we flung ourselves
down in the cow stalls where it's low-like--just dirt floor--and then we
just naturally went a-whooping under the barn floor when the Yanks come.
And we didn't know Cap'n Sawyer by his voice nohow. We heard 'im
discoursing, and we allowed it was a mighty pert man, but we didn't know
that it was him. No, m'm."
These three men, so recently from a situation of peril, seemed suddenly
to have dropped all thought of it. They stood with sad faces looking at
the barn. They seemed to be making no plans at all to reach a place of
more complete safety. They were halted and stupefied by some unknown
calamity.
"How do you raikon they cotch him, Sim?" one whispered mournfully.
"I don't know," replied another, in the same tone.
Another with a low snarl expressed in two words his opinion of the
methods of Fate: "Oh, hell!"
The three men started then as if simultaneously stung and gazed at the
young girl who stood silently near them. The man who had sworn began to
make agitated apology: "Pardon, miss! 'Pon my soul I clean forgot you
was by. 'Deed, and I wouldn't swear like that if I had knowed. 'Deed, I
wouldn't."
The girl did not seem to hear him. She was staring at the barn. Suddenly
she turned and whispered, "Who is he?"
"He's Cap'n Sawyer, m'm," they told her sorrowfully. "He's our own
cap'n. He's been in command of us yere since a long time. He's got folks
about yere. Raikon they cotch him while he was a-visiting."
She was still for a time and then, awed, she said, "Will they--will they
hang him?"
"No, m'm. Oh, no, m'm. Don't raikon no such thing. No, m'm."
The group became absorbed in a contemplation of the barn. For a time no
one moved nor spoke. At last the girl was aroused by slight sounds, and
turning, she perceived that the three men who had so recently escaped
from the barn were now advancing toward it.