“That was the signal for the trouble that had been smoldering. They charged down on the place like a lot of angry wasps, and I grabbed up the kid and ran. I saw it was no use to make a fight. I hid in a disused hut till just now, when they routed me out. Through a crack I watched ’em loot the storehouse. All the time they was sayin’ what they’d do to me when they catched me. Pretty soon they found kegs of rum in the cellar, and then I knew it was about all over but the shouting.
“One feller suggests that they set the storehouse on fire when they’d got everything out of it, and presently I seen them touch a match to a pile of tinder and start the blaze up.
“I watched for a while and then figgered that if ever there was a chance of my escaping with the kid it was right then. So I crept out of the hut where I’d lain hidden. But as ill-luck would have it, just at that instant a bunch of them ran upon me. I started off in this direction, expecting every minute to feel a bullet in my back. The rest you know.”
All this time there had come no sign from the mutineers. Outside things had, in fact, grown quite quiet. Ominously so. It meant, according to Tom’s way of thinking, that they were hatching up some plan of attack on the big shed, and—not one of its occupants had any more dangerous weapon than a pocket knife.
Suddenly a voice outside hailed them:
“Ahoy thar! in ther shed!”
“Well, what is it?” shouted back Tom.
“Will you give us up Zeb Hunt?”
“What do you want to do with him?” asked Tom, while Hunt watched him with an agonized look on his rough features.
“String him up!” came the savage rejoinder. “Send him out here and you shall all get off without any bother frum us. But ef yer keep him thar we’ll make you sorry fer it.”