As Tom ceased speaking, I thrust my head out of the window to take a survey of the situation.
I found that the house stood in the center of a dense cane-brake, and that it was built close against the side of a perpendicular bluff. There was something peculiar in its construction that attracted my attention at once. It was an ordinary log cabin, containing probably not more than one room below, but the roof, instead of rising to a peak, sloped back from the front of the building, the after end of the rafters resting against the side of the cliff.
I noticed, too, that, although the rafters extended as high as the top of our prison, they did not cover it; consequently, the rooms could not have been in the house, but in the bluff. I wondered at this, and looked toward Tom for an explanation.
“It was a freak of Luke Redman’s,” said he. “It is no uncommon thing for him to be obliged to conceal himself for a month or two; and in order that he might have a safe harboring-place, he built this house, which is situated on an island in a part of the swamp that no one ever visits, not even hunters. Not satisfied with this, he dug a hole in the hill, and walled it up with planks to keep it from caving in. It is an excellent place of concealment, for even if any of his enemies should find the house, they might ransack it from top to bottom without discovering these two rooms.”
“But they could see this window,” I suggested.
“Not from the ground,” replied Tom. “This grape-vine covers it completely. We can see out, but no one can see in.”
I looked out again to complete the examination I had begun, and to calculate our chances for escape. The first things I noticed were several horses, my own and mother’s among the number, hitched to trees a short distance from the house. They were all saddled, and the bridles were slipped over their heads, showing that although Luke Redman and his followers fancied themselves perfectly secure in their hidden fortress, they had not neglected to make preparations for a hasty flight. A little further on, Pete and his companions, who had brought the horses to the island by some roundabout way, lay stretched out on their blankets around a smoldering camp-fire, sleeping soundly after their hard ride of the previous night. A pack of bloodhounds, probably eighteen or twenty of them in all, lay curled up in the sun directly in front of the open door of the cabin, from which there issued a chorus of terrific snores, telling me that the robber and his young confederates were also slumbering heavily.
I took in all these things at a glance, and my hopes fell to zero. If it were dark, we might possibly succeed in making our escape; but how could we lower ourselves from that window in broad daylight, walk past the hounds, and go into the house among those sleeping desperadoes—for that we would certainly be obliged to do if we expected to take the money with us—and, lastly, secure possession of our horses and make off with them, without arousing somebody?
“Tom,” said I, “your plan won’t work at all. It is positively foolhardy. I believe I would rather stay here than run the risk of being torn in pieces by those hounds.”
“I haven’t yet told you what my plan is,” replied Tom. “Those dogs will not trouble you. They all know me, and I can go where I please about the house, and they will not even look at me.”