"Waal, I reyther guess I'll hold on," he answered. "I ain't frightened of snow and never stopped hum nights when I could go out. I was a trapper in the Rockies once. This weather is old company, and no man kin tell what's behind sich a smother. Death or life, 'tis no great odds to me; so I'm for going ahead."
"I hope it don't displeasure you us turning back," panted Caleb Carberry to Stark; "but I'm very wishful ter get home again some day. I've got a wife and family in Vermont——"
"Then you'd be a knave to hold on," said the other. "I've got nothing in Vermont but a good solid chunk of the State itself. The beavers won't miss me, nor yet the maple trees, nor yet my cousins, I'll swear."
When the glare from a great lamp above the main entrance was seen across the snow, three men huddled together in an empty sentry-box near the gates, and three struck strongly forward into the south-east. They held a steady course, and walked in Indian file, with the storm on their left sides.
Sam Cuffee sobbed and screamed.
"Poor tings, dey got der marching orders! I nebber see Marse Stark any more. I wish I born dead!"
"Shut your mouth, you black scorpion," said Burnham savagely. His heart was with his friends, and now he smarted to think that he had turned. If they lived, they would never respect him more. So he believed. He had always entertained a lively jealousy where Stark was concerned. He knew that his messmate was a better man than himself and, eaten by envy, could not pardon his superiority. Now in his heart there sprang a base and fleeting hope that Stark had departed to die.
"I'se no scorpion," answered Cuffee. "I'se only berry dam miserable nigger, sar."
"Be silent! Do you want the men in the guardhouse to hear us? We're to give Commodore Miller as much law as we dare without getting ourselves frostbitten. Then we can ring the bell and sneak back to kennel—like the hounds we are."
"To the cachot," said Carberry. "I kinder guess we'll sleep on granite to-night. Snow's softer and warmer, after all's said. But if we sleep here, you bet we shan't wake no more."