“Ah’m advisin’ you boys not to do no lookin’ about in dis here country!” Uncle Zeke exclaimed. “Mighty ’spicious people, dem night-riders!”
“That’s exactly the idea, Alex!” Clay expressed himself. “The night-riders probably suspect that we are here as spies and that’s why they have taken the boys away. Now there’ll probably be something doing here before long, for the riders seem to be out in force.
“After they have accomplished the purpose of their gathering, they’ll probably disband, and there’ll be no more trouble with them until they get ready to burn down another tobacco warehouse, or beat up some defenseless grower, whose only crime is to want to get rid of his product.”
While these events had been taking place at the landing, Case and Jule, very much to their surprise, had been released from surveillance at the farm house and advised to make their way back to the river.
“My old man declares there’s no harm in you-ins,” Mrs. Peck said, as she patted the boys on the shoulder in a motherly way and wished them good luck. “You’ll probably find your friends at the cove,” she said, “for our folks just returned from there, and the boys were waiting for you to show up. Only don’t say a word about having been brought here at all. It will be better for you not to.”
The boys agreed to this, and shot away at a double-quick pace toward the cove, anxious to meet their chums, and doubly anxious to be on the deck of the good old Rambler again. They were hardly outside the clearing in the middle of which the old farm house stood when a party of a dozen men came dashing across the weed-grown field and approached the old woman now standing in the doorway.
“Where are those boys?” the man who seemed to be the leader of the party demanded. “Bring them out here, quick!”
As he spoke, several members of the party flourished long beechen whips which had evidently been cut from the forest very recently.
“What do you-uns want of the boys?” asked the old lady mildly. “We’ll explain that to them!” answered the leader, his face flushing with anger. “We don’t have to be cross-examined by you.”
“I sho’ hope those boys hain’t done no mischief,” the woman replied.