Hopkins had never seen so many quails as he saw that afternoon, not even in Maryland, where they are found in such numbers that they attract sportsmen from distant States. He found so many fresh coveys that he forgot all about the one he had left in the brier-patch. The pointers led him on and on, and Hopkins never stopped to take his bearings, until he had filled the pockets of his shooting-coat so full of birds that they would not hold another one. Then he sat down on a log to rest, and to listen for the roar of Egan’s gun. But he did not hear it, for Egan and his party were on their way to the shooting-box, having secured all the birds they wanted.
“I declare, it is growing dark,” said Hopkins; “and if I don’t reach the cabin pretty soon, I shall have to stay in the woods all night. That would not be pleasant, for the fellows never would leave off poking fun at me. Come on, boys. I think the lake lies in this direction.”
But Hopkins was not the only hunter who has been “completely turned around” in the woods, and instead of going toward the lake, he followed a course that lay parallel with the shore, and about a mile and a half from it. He walked rapidly, passing through Godfrey Evans’s old cotton field—now grown up to briers—and within less than two hundred yards of his cabin, and finally found himself sitting on the top rail of a fence which ran along by the side of a smooth, well-beaten road. He did not remember that he had ever seen that road before. He believed that it ran from the river back into the country; but which was the river-end of it and which the country-end, he could not tell. The pointers did not seem disposed to help him out of his quandary, for when he stopped on the top rail of the fence to rest, they laid themselves contentedly down by the side of the road to wait until he was ready to go on.
“I am out of my reckoning as sure as the world,” said Hopkins to himself, “and there’s no house in sight. Ah! Here comes somebody. I’ll ask him if he will tell me which way I must go to find the river—that is, if I can stop him.”
Just then Hopkins heard the clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the hard road. He knew that the animal was approaching at the top of his speed, but he could not see him, for the thick bushes shut out his view. He jumped off the fence and hurried to the road to intercept the horseman, and just then a riderless nag dashed by, running with the speed of the wind. Hopkins knew him the moment he caught sight of him, for he had seen him before.
“There, sir!” he exclaimed, “I knew that colt would do some damage if he ever got the chance. When you see a horse with a narrow forehead and peaked ears that almost touch at the tips, you want to look out for him. He’s gone and tumbled Dave Evans and his mail bag off into the ditch, and who knows but he may have broken his neck?”
As this thought passed through the boy’s mind he shouldered his gun, and set off up the road in the direction from which the horse came. He moved along at a rapid trot, looking everywhere for the dismounted mail-carrier, but he would certainly have passed him if he had been alone. The dogs were the first to discover him. After Hopkins had run about half a mile, Dandy and Punch, who were fifty yards in advance of him, suddenly stopped and began barking at something in the fence-corner—the boy could not see what it was, for the bushes concealed it from his view. Believing from the actions of the dogs that they had found a wild animal of some kind, Hopkins cocked both barrels of his gun and walked slowly along the road until he came opposite the fence corner, but still he could see nothing. He tried to send the dogs into the bushes, but they positively refused to go. They barked loudly and looked very savage, but kept close to Hopkins for protection.
“I don’t much like the idea of going in there myself,” thought the young hunter, “for there are such, things as bears, panthers and wild-cats in this country; and neither do I like to go on without having a shot at that varmint, whatever it may be. I won’t, either. I am going to see what it is.”
His gun was loaded with heavy shot, and Hopkins had the utmost confidence in his skill as a marksman. Having fully made up his mind that he would not be driven from the field by an invisible enemy, he walked cautiously toward the bushes, stooping down now and then to peer into them. The pointers kept pace with him, and finally Dandy, who must have discovered something that set his fears at rest, made a sudden bound and disappeared in the thicket. No sooner was he out of sight than his barking ceased, and when Hopkins parted the bushes with one hand, holding his gun in the other in readiness for a shot, he saw the pointer licking the face of the mail-carrier, who was lying on the ground so effectually gagged with a stick that he could not speak, and so tightly wrapped up in ropes that he could move neither hand nor foot. Hopkins was horrified, as almost any boy would have been under the same circumstances. Although the thicket was pretty dark the hunter recognized David as readily as he had recognized his horse, and he thought at first that he was dead; but when his optics became somewhat accustomed to the obscurity, he saw that David’s eyes were wide open, and that they were turned toward him with a most appealing expression.
“Well, this is a little ahead of any thing I ever heard of,” said Hopkins, who was profoundly astonished. “What are you doing there?”