“We must have pushed him pretty hard,” said Duke, “for he did not have time to unbuckle the straps with which the valise was fastened to the saddle, but cut them with his knife. He isn’t far off. Spread out now, and let us see if we can find any signs of his having crossed the bayou.”
As we were all expert hunters, and good at following a trail, it did not take us many minutes to find out what had become of Luke Redman. After a short search, we discovered the prints of his feet in the soft earth, and followed them from the thicket in which he had left the horse to the edge of the bluff, where they ceased.
When we saw that, we were pretty certain that we knew where to find Luke Redman. He was hidden under the cliff.
My companions unslung their guns with a common impulse—how I wished for the double-barrel that Pete had carried away with him!—and waited for somebody to suggest a plan of operations.
“He is under our very feet, and almost within reach of us,” said Herbert. “Don’t you see that those bushes are bent down and look as though they had been tramped upon? He did that when he lowered himself over the side of the cliff.”
“Yes, we’ve treed him easy enough,” said Mark; “but how are we going to secure him? Luke Redman isn’t the man to allow himself to be captured and sent to state prison if he can help it, and perhaps he is standing below there, ready to put a charge of buckshot into the first one who shows his head over the bluff. I am afraid to try it.”
If Mark was afraid, it was plain that Sandy was not, for he threw himself flat upon the ground, and, at the imminent risk of losing his balance and falling into the bayou, thrust his head over the brink of the cliff and looked under it. He held this position a moment, and then called out:
“Now, I’ll just tell you what’s the matter with you; you’re ketched!”
“No, I hain’t,” said a gruff voice, in reply. “Better keep close up thar, or I’ll plug some on you.”
“Ho! ho!” laughed Sandy. “You can’t skeer us none. You’re in a pretty situation to plug any body, hain’t you now? Fellers, if you want to see something, just look down here!”