TAKING THE BACK TRACK.
We reached the edge of the cane-brake in a few minutes, and there we
stopped to reconnoiter.
There was not a man, dog, or even a horse in sight; and having satisfied
ourselves on this point, we sprang out of our concealment, and ran
toward the cabin.
Tom led the way up the grape-vine, carrying the valise in his teeth. I
followed close behind him, with both guns slung over my shoulder, and
presently we found ourselves safe in our prison again.
“I call this a masterly piece of strategy,” panted Tom, drawing his
coat-sleeve across his forehead. “It will take them a long time to find
out where we are, and delay will serve us as well as any thing else. All
we want is to keep out of their clutches until the settlers arrive.”
The first business in hand was to fasten the doors, which was easily
done. There happened to be several short pieces of plank in Tom’s
prison, and from these we selected two which answered our purpose
admirably. By putting one end under the locks and bracing the other end
against the floor, we secured both doors so effectually that, as long as
the locks remained in their places, no power that could be applied on
the outside could force them open.
There was but one way in which our enemies could effect an entrance, and
that was by cutting down the doors; but we did not think they would be
reckless enough to attempt that in the face of our double-barrels.
After we had fastened the doors, Tom sat down on the floor to rest after
his exertions, and I stood at the window, awaiting the return of Luke
Redman and his friends.
The sound of voices, which came faintly to my ears, told me that they
were still searching for our trail along the bank of the bayou, and
during the next ten minutes they passed all around the island.
By that time they must have been satisfied that we were still in the
cane-brake, for they came back to the house in a body, the dogs leading
the way.
Luke Redman, whose face was white with rage and excitement, rode
directly to the door of the cabin and dismounted to put the hounds on
our trail.
“Hunt ’em up!” he shouted, running his hand along the ground and waving
it in the direction of our supposed hiding-place. “Hunt ’em up! Be off
with you!”
The dogs were willing enough to follow our trail, now that they were
encouraged by the voice and presence of their masters. They quickly took
up the scent, and ran yelping toward the cane-brake, with the horsemen
close at their heels.
For a few moments their music grew fainter and fainter, and then began
to increase in volume. Presently they reappeared, still followed by the
horsemen, and ran straight to the foot of the grape-vine.
I began to tremble now, but Tom was as cool as a cucumber.
“Wal, I never did see sich fools of dogs in all my born days,” exclaimed
Barney, as the hounds looked up at the window, and began barking
furiously. “They’ve follered the back track.”
“That’s jest what they’ve done,” said Luke Redman, in great disgust. “If
I had my gun in my hands, I would shoot the last blessed one on ’em. Any
body with half sense could tell that them boys wouldn’t come back here
an’ go up into them rooms arter they were onct safe out of ’em. Call ’em
away, an’ put ’em on the trail ag’in.”
This was easier said than done. The hounds understood their business
much better than Barney, and they positively refused to yield obedience
to his commands.
They knew they had treed their game, and, if they were capable of
thinking at all, were doubtless wondering why their master did not make
an effort to secure it. Even Luke Redman’s voice had no effect upon
them; and, becoming highly enraged at last, he threw himself from his
horse, and falling upon them with his rawhide, sent them yelping right
and left.
“Thar, dog-gone you!” he shouted, “cl’ar yourselves! I’ll never trust
none on you ag’in. Barney,” he added, suddenly, a bright idea striking
him, “s’pose you an’ Jake run up stairs an’ look into them rooms. ’Twont
do no harm, although I know the boys hain’t thar.”
Barney and his brother disappeared in the house, and presently we heard
them coming up the stairs. They went to the door of my prison first, and
were plainly very much surprised when it refused to open for them. They
turned the key several times, to make sure that they had unlocked it,
and pushed with all their might, but with no better success than before.
Then they tried the other door, but found it equally well secured.
They kept up a chorus of questions and ejaculations all the while, and
Tom and I stood leaning on our guns, smiling complacently at one
another, and wondering how the matter would end.
The two Dragoons must have become suspicious at last, for they sunk
their voices to a whisper, and after holding a short consultation,
Barney cried out, in an excited tone: “Pap! I say, pap! Dog-gone my
buttons, here they be!”
Our faces lengthened out very suddenly when we heard this.
Things began to get exciting now. Barney’s announcement must have
occasioned great surprise among the outlaw crew below.
The loud conversation they had kept up ceased instantly, and after a
moment’s pause, Luke Redman said:
“I reckon you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree, Barney.”
“Not if I know myself, I hain’t,” answered the leader of the Swamp
Dragoons. “Something’s the matter with these yere doors, ’cause they
won’t open.”
Luke Redman, greatly astonished at this piece of news, rushed into the
house and came up the stairs half a dozen steps at a time. He seized the
key, turned it in the lock, and threw all his ponderous weight against
the door, but it did not give an inch. The other was equally obstinate;
and after a few ineffectual attempts to force an entrance, the robber
stooped down and looked through the key-hole. He did not see any thing,
however, for Tom and I were wise enough to keep out of sight.
“Thar ain’t nobody in thar,” said he, “but I reckon I know how the
matter stands. They fastened the door afore they left. Barney, you go
down an’ climb up that grape-vine, an’ look in an’ see if they didn’t.”
“Wal, now, jest hold your breath till I go, will you?” replied Barney.
“When you see me foolin’ with them two fellers, you’ll see a weasel
asleep. They’ve got guns. I hain’t a-goin’ to stir a step.”
“You’re a coward!” exclaimed his father, angrily. “If the grape-vine
would b’ar my weight, I would go myself; but it won’t. Jake, are you a
coward, too?”
“No, I hain’t,” replied that worthy. “I’ll go, ’cause I know they ain’t
thar.”
Luke Redman and his boys descended the stairs, and, looking out of the
window again, we saw Jake pull off his coat and begin the ascent of the
grape-vine.
“What is to be done now?” I asked, with some uneasiness. “It won’t be
safe to allow him to come up here.”
“Oh, yes, let him come on,” replied Tom. “We’ll go into the other room,
and if he comes in there, we’ll see that he don’t get out again in a
hurry. You know we are working for time now, and it makes little
difference what we do.”
Tom, as usual, carried his point. We watched Jake until he had ascended
almost within reach of us, and then retreating into my prison, crouched
one on each side of the opening, and waited for him to make his
appearance.
We heard the grape-vine rustling against the side of the cliff, and
presently Jake’s head and shoulders darkened the window.
He panted loudly with the violence of his exertions, and after a little
delay, during which he was doubtless looking all about the room, he sang
out: “Wal, consarn it all!”
“What’s to do?” asked Luke Redman from below.
“Why, they’ve got a plank fast agin’ the door, an’ that’s why we
couldn’t open it,” answered Jake. “But thar ain’t nobody here.”
“Go through into the other room,” said his father.
This command was followed by a long pause on Jake’s part, during which
he was probably trying to make up his mind whether or not it would be
quite safe for him to push his investigations any further, and then we
heard him climb slowly down from the window and walk across the creaking
floor. He stopped every few feet, and was so long in coming that we
began to believe he had concluded to turn back; but presently he placed
his hands against the partition and thrust his head slowly and
cautiously, inch by inch, into the opening.
It was much darker in this room than in the other, and for a moment his
eyes were of but little use to him; but they gradually became accustomed
to the gloom, and Jake, whose face was turned away from me and toward
Tom, began to think he saw something.
“What’s this yere?” he muttered, thrusting out his hand to examine the
object which had attracted his attention, and which was nothing more nor
less than Tom Mason’s head. “Looks like somebody!”
He was not long in finding out that it was somebody; for Tom seized his
wrists in a vise-like grasp, and at the same instant I caught him by the
collar.
“Human natur’!” yelled Jake, terrified almost beyond measure by the
suddenness of our assault. “Help! help! Here they be, pap! Turn loose,
consarn it all!”
Did you ever try to hold an eel? I have, and know that it is an
exceedingly difficult thing to do, but not more difficult than to hold
Jake Redman. Whether he was stronger than both of us, or fear lent him
additional power of muscle, I do not know, but, at any rate, in less
time than it takes to tell it, he slipped out of Tom’s hold, tore away
from me, leaving a portion of his collar in my grasp, and with two jumps
reached the window.
We dived through the openings, one after the other, and followed him
with all possible speed, but he was much too nimble for us.
He threw himself from the window, and must have dropped to the ground,
for when we looked out he was standing among his companions, holding
both hands to his head, which he had bumped pretty severely during his
descent, and looking up at the window as if he could not quite
understand what had happened. His pale face showed that he had sustained
something of a fright.
“What’s the matter of you?” demanded Luke Redman, as soon as he had
recovered from his astonishment. “Seed a ghost?”
“No; but I’ve seed them fellers. They’re up thar, as sure as you’re a
foot high.”
“I don’t b’lieve it,” cried Barney.
“No odds to me whether you do or not,” replied Jake. “I know it’s so,
’cause I seed ’em and felt ’em grab me. Pap, if you’ll take an ax an’
chop down one of them doors, you’ll find ’em an’ your money, too.”
Luke Redman thought this a suggestion worth acting upon. He disappeared
in the house, followed by the boys, who could scarcely find words with
which to express their amazement. They understood now why their hounds
had followed the back track, and wondered at the stupidity we had
exhibited in returning to our prison after once escaping from it.
This much we gathered from their conversation, every word of which we
heard distinctly.
Do you believe you can tell by the way a man walks whether or not he is
angry? I have thought I could; and any one who had heard Luke Redman
coming up those stairs would have known that he was almost boiling over
with fury.
He came thundering along as though he were shod with iron. Arriving at
our door, he pounded upon it with some heavy implement—the ax,
probably—and called out:
“Hay, Tommy, and you, Mark, open this door to onct. Hear me, don’t you?”
Of course we heard him—we could have distinctly heard every word he
uttered if we had been standing on the other side of the island—but it
was no part of our plan to reply to him. Our object was to delay his
operations by every means in our power.
“You needn’t try to pull the wool over my eyes by keepin’ so still,” he
continued, in a very savage tone, “’cause I know you are thar, an’ I
jest ain’t a-goin’ to stand no foolin’. This is the last time I shall
speak to you. If you don’t open this door, I’ll cut it down, snake you
both out by the neck, an’ give you the wust whoppin’ you ever heern tell
on. Hear me, don’t you?”
Still no response.
Tom stood with his hands clasped over the muzzle of his gun and his eyes
fixed upon the plank which secured the door, while I was watching the
hinges, and waiting to see them driven from their fastenings by blows
from the ax.
For fully a minute the robber crew stood listening for an answer. At the
end of that time Luke Redman’s patience was all exhausted, and, without
more ado, he lifted the ax, and the door began to shake and bend under
the heavy blows that were showered upon it.
It was time to speak now, and Tom was wide awake.
“Hold on out there!” he shouted.
“Ah ha!” exclaimed Luke, “you’ve found your tongue at last, have you?
You heern what I said, I reckon. What do you think about it?”
“I don’t think any thing,” replied Tom, coolly, “but I know something.
If you strike that door again with that ax, I’ll send a charge of
buckshot among you. What do you think of _that_?”
These words were spoken in a most determined tone, and we knew by the
sudden silence which followed them that they had not been without their
effect upon the outlaw and his gang.
Tom held himself in readiness to carry out his threat, and I am sure he
would have done it, had it been necessary; but fortunately it was not.
Luke Redman stood as much in fear of buckshot as we did of his hounds.
He said a few words in a whisper to his boys, and then walked slowly
down the stairs and out of the house, where he stood foaming with rage,
and swinging his ax about in a way that made all his companions keep at
a respectful distance.
Tom thrust his gun out of the window, and pushed the branches of the
grape-vine aside, so that Luke could see him.
“I wish I had my shootin’-iron in my hands,” said Luke Redman, glaring
up at us with a most fiendish expression of countenance. “I’d put a load
into you as soon as I’d look at you.”
“Oh, you’re joking!” replied Tom.
“Come down from thar!” shouted the man, shaking his ax at us, “If I get
my hands on you, I’ll—I’ll—”
He finished the sentence with an oath.
“If angry, count fifty before you speak; if very angry, count a
hundred,” said my companion, in a tone of voice that must have
aggravated Luke to the very last degree. “That’s good advice, and I
suggest that you act upon it; but whatever you do, skip those hard
words. Don’t swear. Take breath, and begin again. Didn’t I tell you that
I would be even with you for the little tricks you have played upon me?
You see I have the money,” he added, holding the valise up to the view
of the outlaw crew. “It has been in your possession for the last time. I
am going to send it back to my uncle.”
“I’ll bet a hoss you don’t!” retorted Luke, his face brightening as if
he had discovered a way out of the difficulty. “I’ll give you jest one
more chance. If you will give up the money, you can go off about your
business, an’ nobody shan’t trouble you; if you won’t do that, I’ll
fetch you down from thar in a way you don’t think of. Let’s hear from
you.”
“Now, friend Redman, do you see any thing so very green in our eyes?”
asked Tom, in reply. “You surely do not imagine that we will put
ourselves in your clutches again, do you? We are a trifle too sharp for
that. If it’s all the same to you, we’ll stay here.”
“Wal, you shan’t stay thar, nuther,” roared Luke. “Do you know how I’ll
get you outen thar? I’ll burn you out, that’s what I’ll do. It won’t be
no trouble in the world to set fire to this cabin. The wind blows your
way, an’ it’ll soon get so hot up thar that you’ll be glad to come out.
What do you say now?”