The party continued down the garden until they reached the hedge; then they ran to the right for a short distance, scurried through an arched opening in the green box, and thus reached the outskirts of the pine woods. Next they began to search through the trees. But not a sight of the fugitives could they obtain. After they had tramped over the whole woods, which covered about forty acres, they emerged into open fields. Not a trace of the runaways! They went back and made a fresh search among the pines; they sent negroes in every direction; yet the result was the same. When Mr. Peyton returned, very hot and disgusted, to his usually quiet study he found Charles Jason lying on the sofa in an agony of gout. Several of the children were near him.
“Oh, papa, I hope you did not catch them,” cried one of the latter. She was the little girl who had pulled Waggie from George’s pocket.
Mr. Peyton laughed, in spite of himself.
“Have you fallen in love with the boy who sang, Laura?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.
“No,” said Miss Laura, indignantly, “but Mr. Jason says they were spies—and spies are always hung—and I wouldn’t like to see that nice dog hung.”
The father burst into a peal of merriment.
“Don’t worry,” he said; “I reckon the dog would be pardoned—on the ground that he was led astray by others older than himself. Anyway, the rascals have gotten away as completely as if they had disappeared from the face of the earth.”
Jason groaned. Whether the sound was caused by pain, or disappointment at the escape of the spies, or both, it would have been hard to tell. When he was taken to his home, not until the next day, he vowed he would never more chase anything, be it even a chicken.
And where were the missing man, boy, and dog? Much nearer to the Peyton house than any of its inmates fancied. When Watson and George ran down the garden their only idea was to get as far off from the house as possible, although they believed that they were pretty sure to be captured in the end. Their pistols were still useless; they did not know the geography of the neighborhood; there were enemies everywhere. But after they squeezed through the hedge, they found in front of them, between the box and the edge of the woods, a little patch of muddy, uncultivated land, devoted to the refuse of a farm. A trash heap, a broken plough, empty boxes, barrels, broken china, and other useless things betokened a sort of rustic junk-shop—a receptacle for objects which had seen their best days.
Among this collection, the quick eye of Watson caught sight of a large molasses hogshead, now empty and with its open end turned upwards. He pulled George by the sleeve, pointed to the hogshead, and then looked at the hedge, as he said, breathlessly: “This is big enough to hold us both; jump in—the hedge is so high they can’t see us from the house!”