“All right! Here you are!” said Duke. And in a moment more, one end of the rope was dangling over the cliff, and our fellows were holding fast to the other, ready to hoist away when Duke gave the word. “In order to guard against accident, you had better pass the rope under your arms,” continued the latter. “Take it easy. There’s time enough, and the more you thrash about, the more you exhaust yourself.”
Luke Redman thought it best to act upon Duke’s suggestion; but he had grown so weak and was so nearly overcome with terror, that it was with the greatest difficulty that he could make the rope fast under his arms.
He accomplished it at last, however, and then Duke told us to haul away, adding, in an excited whisper:
“Be ready to grab him the instant his head appears above the cliff. Don’t flinch now, but be careful to keep out of the way of his fists, for they are as heavy as sledge-hammers.”
Luke, being utterly unable to help himself, hung like a lump of lead at the end of the rope, and it was any thing but an easy operation to raise him to the top of the cliff. He came up slowly, inch by inch, and at last his head appeared in sight, then his shoulders, and finally the valise, which Mark instantly pounced upon, while Sandy seized the rascal by the collar and pulled him upon the bluff.
“Now stand out o’ the way, or I’ll kick some on you into the bayou,” shouted Luke Redman, whose terror vanished the moment he found himself on solid ground. “I’ve got a pistol in my pocket.”
“An’ that’s all the good it’ll do you,” replied Sandy, catching the robber’s hands and pinning them to the ground. “We are a few too many for you. Show what you’re made of, fellers!”
Tired and weak as Luke Redman was, he had plenty of determination left in him. He struggled furiously, and scratched and bit like some wild animal; but he did not kick any of us into the bayou, and neither did he draw his pistol, simply because we did not give him an opportunity. We jumped upon him in a body, and while two of us confined his legs, which he kept flying about like the shafts of a windmill, the others pulled his arms behind his back and tied them fast. It was all over in five minutes, and the robber lay panting and foaming on the ground, while we stood with our hands in our pockets, looking at him.
CHAPTER X.
I STAND PICKET.
I do not believe that any five boys in the world ever felt more astonished or elated over a stroke of good fortune than we did at the unexpected success that had attended our chase after Luke Redman.