"Humph! he's there, but he ain't took yet, and there's four more stout fellows beside the nigger, and one on 'ems ekal to any two o' us. So come along, both o' ye."
"No," said Lyttleton, "you have undertaken the job, and it's no part of my plan to assist in the fray. I'll pay liberally when it's done; but as I told you in the first place, I can't have Clendenin get sight of either my face or that of my valet."
"Black your faces, or tie a handkercher over 'em," suggested Abner's brother.
"No; he'd recognize our voices."
"You're a—— coward," sneered Abner. "No use argufying with the white-livered critter, Josh. He won't git his job done, 'tain't likely, if he don't help, that's all. Come on back. P'raps Brannon's there by now, and if the fellers'll only quiet down to sleep, I for one am willin' to try it for the sake o' the plunder, and the cash we'll have in hand afore we let these ere chaps have their way with the one they're wantin' to git shut of."
"What a vulgar wretch!" muttered Lyttleton, in a tone of extreme disgust, as the two ruffians turned and left the spot to make their way rapidly back to the house.
They found Brannon there, waiting with the others for the slight occasional sounds overhead to cease, as they dared not make the desired attack with their intended victims awake and prepared to meet and repel it.
But they waited in vain; our travellers hearing men's voices, conversing in subdued tones in the room below, understood for what they were waiting, and not wishing for a fight, took care to let them know that they had not all succumbed to sleep.
In fact the hunter, listening intently with his ear to a crack in the floor, heard the woman say, "Not yet, they're not asleep yet, for I hear 'em movin'."
"Ye do, eh?" he growled in undertone, "well, ye'll likely keep on a hearin' it till them he wolves o' yourn goes back to their den in the woods."