After burning another match to make sure the way was clear below him, Sanders crawled through the opening in the roof, and hanging by his hands, dropped to the ground. A knife which he drew from his pocket made quick work with the prisoner’s bonds, and in a few seconds he was free.
“How came you here?” Julian asked of his deliverer, after he had taken a few turns around the smoke-house to relieve his cramped limbs. “I left you ten miles down the river fast asleep on board the flatboat.”
“Not much I wasn’t asleep,” replied Sanders, with a laugh. “I seed every thing that happened. But we hain’t got no time to talk. Be thar any men in the house?”
“No. Jake and Tom are alone with their mother.”
“Them boys? If I had known that, you wouldn’t have been brought in here. Climb up on my shoulders now, and crawl out.”
Not having entirely recovered from the effects of his long ride in his wet clothes, Julian was not very strong or active, but after some difficulty he succeeded in mounting upon Sanders’ broad shoulders, and drawing himself up to the opening in the roof, he crawled through and dropped to the ground. The man climbed up the logs and followed him, and when he once more stood by Julian’s side he gave utterance, with the first words he spoke, to the very thoughts that were passing through the boy’s mind.
“I reckon that if I do a few more things of this kind you will be willin’ to b’lieve that I am any thing but an enemy to you, won’t you?” he asked.
“You have rendered me a most important service,” answered the boy, guardedly, “and I am very grateful to you for it. I only wish I was as well satisfied of your friendship, and the truth of some things you told me this morning, as I am of the interest you somehow take in me. I can not understand why you, who are an utter stranger to me, should put yourself to so much trouble to assist me.”
“I hain’t no stranger to you,” replied Sanders earnestly. “I tell you I knowed you and your brother afore either of you could walk. You were stole away from your home by Dick Mortimer. Your friends have just found out whar you are, an’ sent me arter you. You’re goin’ to start for the plains now, hain’t you?”