There is no telling what might have happened had it not been for Luke Redman, whose stern voice sent the hounds cowering into the bushes, and arrested the hands that were uplifted to strike me.
“Get out, you whelps!” he roared. “Quit your foolin’, boys. We’ve no time to waste in settlin’ with him now. Fetch up the hosses, an’ let’s start fur hum.”
In obedience to these commands, my captors ceased their hostile demonstrations, and began preparations for instant departure. Barney and Jake busied themselves in tying my hands; the rest of the Dragoons brought up the horses belonging to the attacking party, which were hidden in the swamp a short distance from the camp, while Pete and the rest of the half-breeds ransacked the shanty, and took possession of the guns, saddles and hunting-horns which our fellows had left behind them.
When every thing was ready for the start, Luke Redman, mounting Black Bess, rode at the head of the cavalcade, and I followed at his heels, in precisely the same situation in which the robber had been placed a few hours before—mounted on mother’s horse, with my hands bound behind my back.
“I told you somethin’ was a-goin’ to happen, an’ you laughed at me,” chuckled Luke Redman. “Now you’ll see how much fun thar is in ridin’ through a thick woods with your hands tied hard an’ fast.”
I had not gone a hundred yards from the camp before I found that there was no fun at all in it. The briers and cane were thick, and, as I could not raise my hands to protect my face, I received more than one blow and scratch that brought the tears to my eyes. But I made no complaint. Luke Redman had endured it during a journey of fifteen miles, and I thought I could endure it also.
That was my second dreary ride that night, and it was one I never wanted to take again.
What my captors were going to do with me, and in what direction they were traveling, I had no way of finding out, for they would not answer my questions. All I could tell was that Luke Redman took especial pains to avoid the clear ground, seeming to prefer the muddy and almost impassable bottom to the high and dry ridges; and that when day dawned, and it became light enough for me to distinguish objects about me, I found myself in a part of the swamp I had never visited before.
“Thar!” exclaimed Luke, reining in his horse on the banks of a deep bayou, and glancing back at the labyrinth of trees and bushes from which we had just emerged, “I’d like to see the man who can foller our trail. Now, Barney, you an’ Pete come here a minute.”
The persons addressed followed the robber a short distance up the bayou, and held a long consultation with him. When it was ended, Tom Mason, Luke Redman and the Swamp Dragoons dismounted, I was dragged out of my saddle, and the horses we had ridden were taken in charge by Pete and his half-breed companions, who crossed the bayou and disappeared in the woods on the opposite bank.