“Well, you done come safe off, didn’t you?” growled the man in the tree, and Mark judged by the tones of his voice that he would have been much better pleased if he had gone into the cavern with the canoe. “The next time you come so nigh to goin’ out o’ the world, you’ll go; you kin bet on that.”
Mark did not reply. He sat on the log, panting loudly, and looking first at the place where his canoe had disappeared, then at the angry waters about him, and finally he fastened his gaze upon the man in the tree, who seemed to be in no amiable frame of mind.
He was no stranger to the persons into whose company he had been thus unexpectedly thrown.
About ten miles from our settlement, in an almost inaccessible part of the swamp, lived a colony of people who gained a livelihood in some mysterious manner, that had more than once excited the suspicions of the planters.
The head man among them was Luke Redman, and he it was who was now crouching in the branches of the tree, glaring down at Mark like some wild animal which had been brought to bay by the hounds.
The boys on the cliff were the younger members of the colony of which I have spoken, who seemed in a fair way to follow in the footsteps of their fathers, for a harder set of fellows could not be found anywhere.
They boasted a sort of military organization, and their officers were a captain and a lieutenant.
The captain was Barney Redman, the oldest son of the man in the tree, and his distinguishing badge was a squirrel’s tail, which he wore in front of his hat for a plume.
His brother Luke, the lieutenant, sported a coonskin cap and a couple of turkey feathers.
The Dragoons were gathered in a group on the edge of the cliff, holding a whispered consultation, and now and then looking down at Mark, as if he were the subject of their conversation.