Before Mose could reply Captain Joe came dashing through the bushes. He stopped by Case’s side and lay down, trembling with excitement.
“If the dog could talk he would tell me what’s going on,” Case said, reprovingly, to the negro. “Where have you two been?”
Mose, evidently encouraged by the presence of the dog, told haltingly of the attack on the Rambler that morning, of his being thrown overboard, with the dog, of his day of wandering, hungry and afraid, about the old place, and of Captain Joe following the tracks of the boys to the entrance to the house.
He said that he had lain in hiding, afraid to enter, and had kept the dog quiet until it began to get dark, when he had followed Captain Joe to a window from which the sound of voices had issued. The dog had leaped in, after he had pulled away the rotten board, he said, and there he had seen Alex. and Jule, enveloped in a ghostly light, with a white ghost struggling with the dog!
The story was told with many sidelong glances at the shadows which lay heavy on the landscape, for a moon was now struggling through drifting banks of clouds.
As the boy concluded his story, often delayed by his fright, another commotion came from the grounds nearer the old house. Lights flashed from the windows and pistol shots were heard. Getting one sniff of the acrid smell of powder, Mose leaped to his feet and bounded away again. Captain Joe lifted his nose, wrinkled it in derision, and rose to meet two figures which were pounding down the broken walk toward the bayou.
“Alex.! Jule!” called Case. “What’s doing?”
“Get a move on!” panted Alex. “Get to the boat! Where did that little coon go?”
“He must be somewhere near the Rocky Mountains by this time,” Case replied, falling into the fast pace set by the other boys.
Very soon there were sounds of running feet behind them, and the lads redoubled their efforts to reach the boat before any one else could get to it. Now and then a bullet cut the air close to their ears, but they were not struck.