“I’ll take your wrist, if you please.”
“All right; here you are.” Yates drew back his coat sleeve, and presented his wrist. The dangling cuff was speedily clamped upon it. The constable mounted the patient horse that stood waiting for him, watching him all the while with intelligent eye. The two prisoners, handcuffed together, took the middle of the road, with a horseman on each side of them, the constable bringing up the rear; thus they marched on, the professor gloomy from the indignity put upon them, and the newspaper man as joyous as the now thoroughly awakened birds. The scouts concluded to go no farther toward the enemy, but to return to the Canadian forces with their prisoners. They marched down the road, all silent except Yates, who enlivened the morning air with the singing of “John Brown.”
“Keep quiet,” said the constable curtly.
“All right, I will. But look here; we shall pass shortly the house of a friend. We want to go and get something to eat.”
“You will get nothing to eat until I deliver you up to the officers of the volunteers.”
“And where, may I ask, are they?”
“You may ask, but I will not answer.”
“Now, Renmark,” said Yates to his companion, “the tough part of this episode is that we shall have to pass Bartlett’s house, and feast merely on the remembrance of the good things which Mrs. Bartlett is always glad to bestow on the wayfarer. I call that refined cruelty.”
As they neared the Bartlett homestead they caught sight of Miss Kitty on the veranda, shading her eyes from the rising sun, and gazing earnestly at the approaching squad. As soon as she recognized the group she disappeared, with a cry, into the house. Presently there came out Mrs. Bartlett, followed by her son, and more slowly by the old man himself.
They all came down to the gate and waited.