While we were thinking the matter over, and wondering what we could do to assist Jerry, we heard a heavy tramping in the hall, and presently Mr. Todd, Mr. Dickson and father came in, accompanied by the constable and jailer. They had found bail for Jerry, and he was once more at liberty to go where he pleased until the following month, when his case would come up for trial before the Circuit Court. He did not seem very much elated over his liberation, for he shrank from encountering the curious eyes which he knew would be turned upon him when he reached the street. But we did not give him time to think about that. Herbert and I caught him by the arms, Sandy put his hat on his head (he was so completely wrapped up in his troubles that he seemed to have forgotten that he had a hat to wear, or a pair of feet to stand upon), and we hurried him out of the jail and across the road to the place where we had left our horses.
We sprang into our saddles, I took Jerry up behind me, and in a few minutes carried him out of sight of the village. In accordance with his request, I put him down at the head of the lane that led to the swamp, and there we all separated and set out for home.
It was late when Mark and I awoke the next morning. After breakfast, I shouldered an ax, and, mounting my horse, started for the woods, where I had agreed to meet the rest of our fellows and spend an hour or two with them in building turkey-traps, while Mark, who said he didn’t feel like tramping around in the mud all day, remained at home.
No one could have told from the way the day began, that it was destined to wind up with an adventure, and that Mark’s “laziness,” as I called it, was to bring about a series of events that ultimately proved to be of the greatest benefit to Jerry Lamar; but yet it was so.
Before Mark went to bed again he got into a scrape that well nigh cost him his life, and enabled him to prove Jerry’s innocence to every body’s satisfaction. In order that you may understand how it came about, I must follow his movements.
After I left, Mark studied awhile, read a little, and thrummed on his guitar a good deal. He passed an hour in this way, and at the end of that time was aroused from a reverie into which he had fallen by a sound which never failed to throw him into a state of intense excitement—the “honk, honk!” uttered by a flock of wild geese as they flew over the house.
Mark was all life and activity in an instant. Dropping his guitar as if it had been a coal of fire, he caught up his gun, which he always kept loaded and ready for such an emergency, and, in less time than it takes to tell it, was standing bareheaded in the yard, gazing up into the air, which was fairly darkened by wild geese.
Bang! bang! spoke the double-barrel, in quick, decided tones, and down came two of the flock, one stone dead and the other with a broken wing.
After securing his game, Mark stood watching the birds, which flew slowly onward, gradually settling down as they neared the swamp, and finally disappearing behind the bushes that lined the banks of the bayou.
“They have taken to the water,” said Mark, gleefully, “and if I don’t bag a dozen of them before I am an hour older, it will be because I have forgotten how to shoot on the wing.”