Our fellows all ate supper at our house that night, and a happier party than that which sat at our table was never seen anywhere.
Mark was the hero of the evening, and after he had entertained us with a glowing description of his adventure with the Indians, we related to him the exciting and amusing incidents that had happened during our deer hunt.
Duke, Herbert and Sandy started for home shortly after dark, and Mark and I went up to headquarters and prepared to pass the evening with our books. We intended to go back to school in the spring, and as we were too ambitious to fall behind our classes, we made it a point to devote a portion of each day to good hard study. I picked up my philosophy; while Mark settled into a comfortable position in his easy-chair, thrust his slippered feet out toward the fire, and soon became deeply interested in a problem in quadratic equations.
The hours flew rapidly by, and it was nine o’clock almost before we knew it. By that time Mark had found a problem that brought him to a standstill, and resorting to his usual method of stimulating his ideas, he picked up his guitar and cleared his throat preparatory to treating me to his favorite song, “The Hunter’s Chorus,” which I had heard so often that I was heartily tired of it.
Just then the hounds in the yard set up a loud baying. We heard the bars rattle, and then came the clatter of horses’ hoofs and loud voices at the door. Heavy steps sounded in the hall and ascended the stairs. A moment afterward the door opened and Sandy Todd came in, his clothes all splashed with mud, and his usually red face pale with excitement or anger, we could not tell which.
“What’s up?” we asked, in concert.
“I reckon I might as well tell you to onct,” answered Sandy, “’cause you never could guess it. Jerry Lamar is in jail.”
“In jail!” we echoed. “What for?”
“He is charged with stealin’ eight thousand dollars from General Mason,” was the reply.
I must stop here long enough to tell you something about Jerry Lamar, because he had considerable to do with the adventures that befell us during the winter. He lived about six miles from our house, on the banks of Black Bayou. His parents were poor, and Jerry and his father were lumbermen. They cut logs in the swamp, made them into rafts, and when the freshets came, floated them out to the river and down to New Orleans, where they sold them.