“That’s just what’s the matter!” replied our hero.
“How come ye outen that ar smoke-house?”
“I crawled out.”
“Ye’ll crawl back agin mighty sudden, I tell ye,” replied Tom, seizing his brother by the shoulder. “Wake up here, Jake.”
“Hold on!” said Julian, lifting his recovered rifle over Tom’s head. “No noise, now.”
If Tom was alarmed by this movement on the part of Julian, he was still more terrified when he saw a head and a pair of broad shoulders thrust in at the door, and a clenched hand, which looked as though it might have knocked down an ox, shaken threateningly at him. He understood the gesture and took his hand off his brother’s shoulder.
“Good-by, Tom,” said Julian, shouldering his rifle and gathering his clothes and blankets under his arm. “I am sorry that I am in so great a hurry, for I have several little accounts against you and Jake that I should like to settle up before I go. Give my very kindest regards to your father when he returns, and be sure and follow the excellent advice your mother gave you a while ago in my hearing.”
So saying Julian left the cabin, and Sanders slammed the door after him. Followed by his ally, the boy walked toward the corn-cribs, and while he was pulling off Tom’s tattered garments and putting on his own, which were now dry and comfortable, he saw the door of the cabin opened and the heads of Mrs. Bowles and her two sons thrust cautiously out. But they did not speak to him or venture beyond the threshold. They peered into the darkness a moment and then closed and fastened the door; and that was the last Julian ever saw of them.
Billy, proving more tractable than on a former occasion, was captured and saddled without difficulty. In two hours more Julian’s camp on the bluff was again occupied. The brush shanty which Jack Bowles had pulled down had been restored to an upright position; a fire was burning brightly before it; Billy was standing hitched to a tree close by; and Julian, with his saddle under his head for a pillow, and the tin box containing his money safely stowed away in his pocket, lay stretched out on one of the blankets, while Sanders reclined upon the other smoking his pipe. The man had been relating how he had hidden behind the corn-crib and overheard Jack Bowles’ plans concerning Julian, and thus been able to take measures to defeat them. He had been a witness to everything that happened on board the flatboat. He had seen Julian go overboard, and knowing that Jake and Tom were close by waiting to pick him up, he had clambered down into the yawl, as soon as he saw an opportunity to do so without attracting the attention of any one of the flatboat’s crew, and pushed off to Julian’s assistance. His story was followed by a long pause, which was broken by our hero, who said: