When the two friends got up in the morning and went out of the cabin, they found their two captives in the same position in which they had left them. They looked weary and were stiff in the limbs, as well they might be.
"Well, my friends," said Bradley, "I hope you've passed a pleasant night."
"I'm almost dead," growled Bill Mosely. "I feel as if I'd been here a week."
"Do you feel the same way?" inquired Bradley, addressing Tom Hadley.
"I should say so," answered Hadley, in a voice of intense disgust.
"It was your own choice, Mosely," said Jake Bradley. "It was either all night braced up against a tree, or to be shot at once and put out of your misery."
"Who wants to be shot?" returned Mosely. "That would be worse than stayin' here all night. You might have let us go last night."
"So I might, but I wanted to teach you a lesson. You know very well, Bill Mosely, you'd have fared a good deal worse with some men. You'd have been swingin' from the nearest bough, and so would your friend. You'll come to that some time, but I'd rather some one else would hang you. It ain't a job I hanker after."
"Are you goin' to set us free?" asked Mosely, impatiently, not enjoying Bradley's prediction as to his future fate.
"Yes, I think I will—on one condition."