"The first prisoner, General," said the young officer. "Have you anything with which to bind him?"
"Look yere, Major, this ain't handsome!" cried Sergeant Hank Scudder, in alarm.
"Handsome or not, you can thank your stars that I didn't shoot you dead on the bridge," rejoined Deck. "How about a cord, General?"
"We dun got one, Mars'r Deck," answered the slave, and producing it he and Clinker soon bound the guerilla's hands behind him, after which the rope at his wrists was passed around a stout tree.
Deck's next movement was in the direction of the raft, for nothing was to be seen of Artie, and he was anxious to know how the young captain was faring. He had hardly reached the pile of logs to which the raft was moored, when a sharp cry rang out on the frosty air.
"Help! General, Woolly, Clinker! Help!" There followed another cry, and leaping through the brush and onto the logs Deck saw his cousin battling manfully in a hand-to-hand conflict with two rough men in gray, one of whom was trying to possess himself of the captain's sabre.
In such an emergency Major Deck did not hesitate as to a proper course of action. Had the men been regular Confederates he would have been justified in shooting at them; being guerillas he felt himself even more justified. He took careful aim and fired, and the rascal who had just wrenched the sabre from Artie's grasp fell, shot through the thigh, an ugly wound though not a fatal one.
Surprised at the counter-demonstration thus made, the second guerilla turned to see from what direction the shot had come. Giving him no chance in which to take in the situation, Deck fired a second time, the bullet whistling past the man in gray's shoulder. With a yell the fellow started to retreat from the logs, slipped on the wet and frost-covered surface beneath him, and rolled over and over until he went with a loud splash into the creek, not to reappear upon the surface of the icy current until fifty feet away.
"Artie, are you hurt?" demanded Deck, as he watched the man who had gone overboard.
"N—no, but th—that man nearly choked the life out of me," was the answer, with a cough. "Don't let him get away," and the young captain nodded toward the guerilla who was making for the plantation side of the creek.