"In another minute I stood beside a boy, the one whose life I had saved two months before, and as he cut the thongs that bound my arms he said cheerily:
"'It's all right, Major. Paw'lowed you'd be coming along this yere way 'bout this time o' night, en' telled me to shorely be on hand to meet up with yer. Now, ef yo'll foller me, we'll be outen this direckly.'
"The boy was standing in the mouth of a narrow passage, that, free from water, led away almost at right angles to the main channel of the underground river. It ended at a well-like opening in which stood a rude ladder, climbing this, we emerged through a well concealed trap door into the very room where Abner Haffner had laid at the point of death two months before."
"Is that all?" I asked, as the major paused and lighted a fresh cigar.
"Yes, it's all of that story. I could not cause the arrest of the gang, even had I known who composed it, without causing that of their leader, and from the moment that blessed light illumined the black waters of that underground river I would not have harmed Case Haffner for anything the world holds best worth having. No; by daylight I was well out of that section of country, nor have I ever since set foot in it."
"Have you ever heard again from that boy?"
"Who, Abner? Well, I should say I had. I put him through college, and he is in Congress to-day. If I should tell you his real name you would instantly recognize it as that of one of the smartest men ever sent to Washington from the far South."