He turned and hastened down the road, for at that moment the door opened, and the farmer’s wife appeared, looking eagerly around, evidently to discover if he were lingering about the house. Sim walked quickly on, and waited till everything should once more be restored to tranquillity before he ventured to return and verify his suspicions.
As soon as they believed him gone, Shoemaker opened the back door and gave a low whistle. Instantly a number of men started up in the gloom and filed into the stoop, moving very cautiously. Shoemaker grasped the hand of their leader, and drew him into the room. When the flame of the pine knots fell upon his face, it exposed the features of Walter Butler.
“What on earth, captain!” exclaimed Shoemaker, looking out in astonishment at the group of men.
“I will explain all to you,” returned Butler; “but first you must find some place for my men—we are too many to stay in this open room—we want some supper, too.”
“Up this way,” said Shoemaker, opening a door that exhibited a stairway leading to an upper story. “Light a dip, Sally—I’ll take ’em up; they’ll be safe there; and the old woman will find ’em some supper, I guess.”
Butler made a signal, and a band of twenty-eight men, fourteen whites and fourteen savages, with arms concealed under their blankets and outer garments, entered the room, and passed almost noiselessly up the staircase.
As they mounted the stairs, unremarked by any of the occupants of the room a human face appeared at the window and looked cautiously through a gap in the curtain, watching every movement with keen vigilance.
When the farmer had seen the men safely stored in the loft, he closed the door behind them and returned to the room, where Walter Butler had thrown himself into a chair, like one wearied by a long march.
“Why, captain, who’d a-thought of seeing you here?” said Shoemaker, taking a seat near him, and lighting his pipe, with all the phlegm of his Dutch ancestors. “You oughtn’t to come on a fellow so sudden; you might have been ketched as easy as not, if I hadn’t had the gumption to get rid of a fellow who was here.”
“Well, we’re safe now, at all events,” said Butler, carelessly; “there’s nothing to be gained, if we don’t dare all; my men and I have been in greater peril than this during the last few days, I can tell you, Shoemaker.”