“Well, I can’t exactly see any thing, but I know it is the camp. Jump off, fellows, and let’s get to work.”
It was all very well for Duke to tell us to jump off, but, as far as I was concerned, that was quite out of the question. I do not know whether I rolled out of my saddle or fell out; but I got out somehow, and did what I could to assist the others in gathering a supply of wood for the fire.
The exercise was beneficial in more ways than one. It stirred up our sluggish blood, banished all the gloomy thoughts that had so long depressed us, and when at last the fire was well under way, and the flames were leaping high in the air, and lighting up the interior of our comfortable quarters, we began to feel more like ourselves.
We forgot that we were cold, wet, hungry, and almost ready to drop with fatigue, and thought only of the glorious success we had achieved, and of the sensation we should create when we took our prisoner and General Mason’s money into the settlement, on the following morning.
“I know this is comfortable, fellows,” said Duke, as we crowded about the cheerful blaze, “but let’s do our work first, and get warm afterward. Joe, suppose you and Sandy rub down the horses, and hitch them in some sheltered place where they will be protected from the storm. They have served us faithfully to-day, and it would be cruel to neglect them. While you are doing that, Herbert and I will get in some wood, and Mark can clean and cook the squirrels.”
We did not raise any objections to this arrangement, but hurried off at once to attend to the duties our leader had assigned us.
In half an hour more, the horses had been rubbed dry, and their legs relieved of the mud and ice that adhered to them; a supply of wood sufficient to keep the fire burning all night was piled in one corner of the shanty, and we lay stretched out on the leaves, enveloped in a cloud of steam which arose from our wet clothing, watching with hungry eyes the movements of our cook.
We were all in the best of spirits now, even including Luke Redman, who seemed for the moment to forget that his hands were bound behind his back, and that he stood a splendid chance of passing a portion of his life within the walls of a penitentiary.
“Now, then,” exclaimed Mark, “supper’s ready. I can’t say that it will go very far toward satisfying our appetites,” he continued, glancing at the six pieces of beech bark on which he had placed each one’s share of the squirrels; “but it’s better than nothing. Who is going to feed our friend here?”
“Untie my hands, and I’ll feed myself,” the prisoner replied. “I won’t trouble none on you.”