“We may as well go back, Lizzie,” said her father. “They’ll shoot us if we try to follow now.”
“Thet’s what we will, Santon. Ye’re talkin’ sense. Git back to ther house, now, an’ stay thar. Ef ye come out ag’in, we’ll shoot furst an’ mebby talk arterwards.”
“Come, Lizzie,” said Mr. Santon, sadly, and they turned and went back to the house.
“Sprowl left a couple of his men to watch and prevent us from following,” explained Mr. Santon to his wife, and Lizzie, with tears of disappointment in her eyes, went up to her room.
In the meantime, Sprowl and four of his companions--he had, as we know, left two men behind to watch Santon’s house--made their way onward till they had gone about two miles, and then they came to a log cabin in a hollow. There was a thick growth of trees and many clumps of bushes all around, which would make it difficult for a chance passerby to see the cabin, even though his path led within a short distance of it.
Here the ruffians stopped, and Sprowl ordered that Miller be stripped to the waist.
“We giv’ ye a coat uv tar an’ feathers, ther other time,” he said, “but this time we’re goin’ to give ye ther blamedest lickin’ ye ever got in your life. Tie ’im to that tree, boys.” The last words to his men, who had already quickly divested the teacher of his clothing, and he stood there, naked to the waist.
“You will be sorry for this, Hank Sprowl!” said Miller. “You had better not commit this outrage.”
“Shut up,” was the brief reply. “Ye’re goin’ ter git a lickin’ ye’ll remember to yer dyin’ day, an’ then ye’ hev twenty-four hours to leave ther country in. Get the switches, men, an’ begin.”
A bundle of switches was produced from the nearby cabin, and a couple of the ruffians took each a heavy switch, several feet in length. Stationing themselves on either side of their intended victim, they lifted the switches and held them poised, waiting for the word from Sprowl to strike.