"No," they heard the Lieutenant say, "I can't conceive any hope that they have escaped, for the only traces that I found of them led directly towards the fire. How I can ever muster up courage to face Mrs. Rankin or meet the Mantons with the news of this tragedy, I don't know."
"Hit's a ter'ble t'ing, sah. Ole Quor'm know him couldn' do hit."
"Then it's lucky you won't have to try!" exclaimed Sumner, joyously, stepping into sight, closely followed by Worth.
"Oh, you precious young rascals! You villains, you!" cried the Lieutenant, springing to his feet, and seizing the boys by the shoulders, as though about to shake them. "How dared you give us such a fright? Where have you been?"
"Out deer-hunting, sir," answered Sumner, demurely.
Quorum was dancing about them, uttering uncouth and inarticulate expressions of joy; while the sailor, having dropped his meat into the fire, where it burned unheeded, gazed at them in speechless amazement.
They told their story in disjointed sentences, from which their hearers only gathered a vague idea that they had killed a deer in the burning forest, been rescued from the flames by an Indian, and borne in his arms to a Seminole village in the Everglades, from which, by some unseen means, they had just come.
SUMNER AND WORTH IN THE SEMINOLE CAMP.
"I'll bring him up, and he can tell you all about it himself," concluded Sumner, turning towards the landing-place, to which the Lieutenant insisted on accompanying him, apparently not willing to trust him again out of sight.