“Thar!” exclaimed Luke, reining in his horse on the banks of a deep bayou, and glancing back at the labyrinth of trees and bushes from which we had just emerged, “I’d like to see the man who can foller our trail. Now, Barney, you an’ Pete come here a minute.”
The persons addressed followed the robber a short distance up the bayou, and held a long consultation with him. When it was ended, Tom Mason, Luke Redman and the Swamp Dragoons dismounted, I was dragged out of my saddle, and the horses we had ridden were taken in charge by Pete and his half-breed companions, who crossed the bayou and disappeared in the woods on the opposite bank.
Barney and his followers, in the meantime, were hunting about among the bushes which grew along the edge of the stream, and presently a large canoe was brought to light.
My face must have betrayed the interest with which I watched these proceedings, for Luke Redman said:
“I’m an old fox, an’ I think I have managed this thing jest about right. I know the men in the settlement will be arter us—I shouldn’t wonder if they was on our trail this very minute—an’ they may succeed in follerin’ us arter all the trouble I’ve tuk to throw ’em off the scent. When they reach this yere bayou, they’ll see that the hosses have crossed to the other side, an’ they’ll think, in course, that we are still on their backs; but we won’t be, ’cause we’re goin’ down stream in this yere dug-out. They’ll foller the trail of the hosses, but they won’t make nothin’ by it, ’cause Pete’s an Injun, an’ knows how to fool ’em.”
“Well,” said I, “since you have seen fit to explain your movements to me, perhaps you won’t mind telling me why you are keeping me a prisoner.”
Luke Redman rubbed his chin, and looked down at the ground in a brown study.
“I reckon I might as well tell you now as any other time,” said he, after a moment’s reflection. “I want to use you; that’s the reason I am keepin’ you here. I want to use Tommy, too, an’ that’s the reason I’m keepin’ him.”
This was the first intimation I had had of the fact that Tom Mason was held as a prisoner, and the sudden start that young gentleman gave, and the expression of surprise and alarm that settled on his face, told me as plainly as words that it was news to him also. He looked earnestly at Luke Redman, then at Barney and his companions, and said in a faltering voice: