“An’ she didn’t break loose this time,” said Sandy, confidently. “That thar halter has been cut with a knife.”
“I shouldn’t wonder if this was a part of the plan Tom Mason told us about,” said Mark. “After he landed from his canoe, he slipped around here and stole the horse.”
Something told me that this was the true explanation of the matter; but I would not allow myself to believe it until I had questioned the negroes who just then came running up. The answers they gave to my hurried inquiries destroyed my last hope. They had not seen the mare, and were greatly astonished to learn that she had disappeared.
Being very much interested in the result of our chase after Tom Mason, they had followed us to the bayou, leaving the camp to take care of itself. Our evil genius, or any other prowler, could have walked off with all we had, for there was nobody to prevent it.
I need not stop to tell you all that was said and done when we at last made up our minds that Black Bess had been stolen. It will be enough to say that Sandy rode back to the bayou after Duke and Herbert, and that they all set out in pursuit of Tom Mason, leaving me to superintend the operation of breaking up the camp.
I placed our canoe and the turkeys in the wagon, and, after tying Tom’s boat to a tree on the bank, so that he could find it again when he wanted it (I tell you it cost me a struggle to do that; I had half a mind to turn it adrift, and let it float out to the river and down to the Gulf of Mexico), I rode home with the negroes utterly disconsolate.
If you ever lost any thing you prized as highly as I prized Black Bess, you will know just how I felt.
Our fellows came in at dark, but without any thing encouraging to say to me, and father and I rode over to see General Mason, Tom’s uncle.
We found the young rascal in the library, poring over a book, and looking none the worse for his cold bath in the creek.
He seemed greatly amazed when father told him that the object of our visit was to ascertain what he had done with the horse he had stolen, and so earnestly protested his innocence that I was almost willing to believe he was not the guilty one after all.