Elmer listened. He could hear that terrible pounding keeping up from the back of the house, and understood what it meant. Oh, how he hoped that in the darkness Phil could not see to wield his ax effectively, and might thus fail to cut a way out! For it seemed as though part of the victory would be lost if those two rascals secured their freedom.
Perhaps the colonel was gone a full minute. It seemed ten to the waiting boy, who was wrongly figuring time by the rapid pulsations of his heart.
Then he became aware of the fact that once more the gentleman had joined him, and that he was busily engaged pushing some cartridges into a shotgun he carried.
"Here, Elmer, take this!" he exclaimed, thrusting the weapon into the hands of the scout. "I know you are used to handling firearms, or I wouldn't ask you to do it. Now, come with me, please, and we'll see if we can't influence those two fire-makers to be good!"
Down the steps he ran, so that Elmer was even put to it to keep at his heels. At least the prisoners of the tool house could not have as yet managed to effect their escape, for the battering sounds still continued, accompanied by loud excited cries.
Quickly the two hurried along, until they arrived on the scene of action.
"Look, sir, there's another of them coming!" cried Elmer, pointing to a skulking figure among the bushes, indistinctly seen.
"Here, you, come out of that; we've got you covered, and you can't escape!" exclaimed the colonel, who was gripping something that shone like steel in his right hand, and which Elmer guessed must be a pistol of some sort.
"Don't shoot, kunnel!" cried a quivering voice; "'deed, an' I surrenders, suh! I reckon I's pow'ful glad yuh kim. I's Sam, suh, yuh man Sam! Please don' pull de triggah ob dat gun, Mars Kunnel!"
It was the coachman who had driven Elmer and Mark on the occasion of the latter's being summoned to an interview with the old traveler.