There was no chance to say more. In a twinkling the two had vaulted into the huge barrel, and were fairly squatting at the bottom. Above them was the open sky and the warm sun. Any pursuer who chose to stand on tiptoe and look in would have been rewarded for his pains. But Watson calculated that no one would think of the hogshead for the very reason that it stood out so prominently amid all the trash of this dumping ground. No one, in fact, gave a thought to the spot; it suggested nothing in the way of a hiding-place. Once a negro who had joined the hunt brushed by the hogshead, much to the terror of its occupants, but he gave it no heed. A few minutes later Mr. Peyton stopped within a few feet of it, to speak to his white overseer.
“We have searched the wood thoroughly,” said the overseer, “but they are gone—that’s sure.”
“Well, they have gotten out of the place,” observed the master. “But they won’t get many miles away. I want you to take the sorrel mare and spread the alarm through the neighborhood.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hardly had Mr. Peyton and his overseer hurried away before Waggie indulged in a little yelp, to ease his own feelings. He found things rather cramped at the bottom of the hogshead, to which he had been transferred from George’s pocket; he longed to have more leeway for his tiny legs.
“If you had given that bark a minute ago,” muttered George, “you would have betrayed us, Master Waggie.”
“Oh! oh! oh!” whispered Watson; “I am so cramped and stiff I don’t know what will become of me. This is the most painful experience of the war.”
There would have been something amusing in the position of the hiders if it had seemed less dangerous. Watson was now sitting with legs crossed, in tailor fashion; on his lap was George; and upon George’s knee jumped Waggie.
“You’re getting tired too soon,” said George. “We will be here some time yet.”
He was quite right, for it was not until dusk that they dared leave their curious refuge. Sometimes they stood up, when they got absolutely desperate, and had it not been that the tall hedge protected him, the head of Watson would assuredly have been seen from the Peyton mansion. At last they cautiously abandoned the hogshead, and crept into the pines in front of them. When it was pitch dark the fugitives pushed forward in a northwestwardly direction, until they reached a log cabin, at a distance of about four miles from their point of departure. Within the place a light was cheerily burning.