“There are one or two other things I should like to have you explain, Tom,” said I, after a little pause. “Who stole Black Bess?”

“That is another act which you can lay to my charge,” replied my fellow prisoner. “I knew by the way you fellows looked and acted that day that it would be well for me to keep as far as possible out of your reach, so after I landed from the canoe, fearing that you might jump on your horses and follow me, I slipped around to your camp and stole the mare. I brought her to this house and left her here, and Luke Redman has been riding her ever since. He says she is the swiftest thing in the shape of a horse he ever saw, and he is going to take her to Texas with him.”

“He shan’t do it,” said I. “I’ll follow him 218wherever he goes, and take her away from him. She is my own private property, and I’ll not give her up to any body. Do you know who burned our cotton gin?”

“Yes, Pete is the man. He did it to be revenged on your brother for setting his dogs on him. By the way, don’t let him put his hands on you if you can help it. He thinks you are Mark, and if he gets half a chance, he’ll thrash you within an inch of your life. Among us all we have kept the settlement in an uproar for the last few weeks, haven’t we? Barney and I have been at the bottom of almost every thing that has happened, and I am sorry enough for it now. If any one had told me two months ago that I should ever come to this, I would not have believed him. I have made an outlaw of myself. I can’t call any living person my friend—not even my uncle, for he will never forgive me for what I have done. If I could live over the last year of my life, I’ll bet you I would have a very different record to show. My first care would be to keep out of bad company. That is what has brought me where I am.”

219For along time after this neither of us spoke. Tom looked down at the floor, and I looked at him. He was thinking over his past life, and I was wondering what the future had in store for him. I had at first been utterly amazed when I found how low he had fallen, but I was not so now. Knowing the life he had led for a long time past, it was unreasonable to expect any thing else. One can not handle coals without getting his hands black, and the longer the coals are handled the blacker the hands become.

When Tom first began to associate with the Swamp Dragoons, one year ago, he would have been greatly alarmed at the bare thought that he would ever become so depraved as to commit a robbery. This state of things had not been brought about in a moment—it was the work of months. One mean act led to a second a little worse, another and another followed, and now he was an outcast from home, and utterly friendless, for even Luke Redman and the Swamp Dragoons had deserted him. He was learning by experience that the way of the transgressor is always hard, and I did not wonder that the future looked dark to him.

220“You can’t imagine how heartily I always despised Duke Hampton,” said Tom, suddenly. “I hated the very sight of him, and now I would give all I ever hope to possess if I could be in his place. Every one thinks so much of him. There is not a man, woman or child in the settlement who does not put the most implicit faith in his word, or one who would believe any thing mean of him.”

“And Duke deserves every particle of the confidence that is placed in him,” said I.

“I know it. He never tries to build himself up by pulling others down, and he is much too honorable and manly to say any thing behind your back that he wouldn’t care to say to your face. If you should tell him a secret, he wouldn’t lisp it to the best friend he has in the world. And he is honest, too. Whenever you find a boy like that, you find one that every body likes—except, perhaps, some fool like me whom no one on earth cares for. Now then, I am going to get away from here. I’ll first make amends for my misdeeds, as far as lies in my power, and then I’ll go off where no one knows me and begin again. If there is any 221good in me, it must come out. I’ll make a man of myself yet, and, in order to do it, I’ll follow Duke Hampton’s example as nearly as I can.”

"‘A wrong confessed is half redressed,’ you know," said I. “Why don’t you go home and tell your uncle just what you have told me? I would, if I were in your place.”

“Don’t ask me to do that, Joe,” said Tom, decidedly. “I may come back here one of these days, but I can’t think of staying now. Could I look any body in the face after what I have done? Could you? But let’s talk about something else. Our enemies must be asleep by this time, and if we are going to get away from here, we must be about it.”

“Why, we are not going to make an attempt to escape in broad daylight, are we?”

“Certainly we are; and the sooner we get to work, the better it will be for us. Luke Redman intends to start for the river as soon as it grows dark, and, what is more, he is going to take us with him. If we once begin that journey, we’ll have no chance to get away, for he will tie us hard and fast. It’s now or never. Come 222in here, Joe, and let us take a look at things.”

In accordance with this request, I crawled through the opening into Tom’s prison, and found that, in size and appearance, it was like my own, with this simple difference: There was a window on one side of it, and I was surprised to see that it was not secured with either bars or a shutter.

“I don’t call this much of a jail,” said I. “What is there to hinder you from climbing out of that window whenever you choose? I can’t imagine why Luke Redman confined you here.”

“He didn’t intend to confine me,” replied Tom. “He only wanted to punish me for talking back to him. When Barney came up with my dinner, he told me that the reason his father had put me in this apartment was, that I might keep a watch over you. If you began rummaging about, and discovered the opening between the two rooms, I was to grab you and alarm the house. You see, Luke Redman knew that you and I were not on the best of terms, and thought I would do all in my power to 223prevent your escape. He imagines, too, that I will stay just where he has a mind to put me, and obey any orders he sees fit to issue; but I will show him that he has reckoned without his host.”

As Tom ceased speaking, I thrust my head out of the window to take a survey of the situation.

I found that the house stood in the center of a dense cane-brake, and that it was built close against the side of a perpendicular bluff. There was something peculiar in its construction that attracted my attention at once. It was an ordinary log cabin, containing probably not more than one room below, but the roof, instead of rising to a peak, sloped back from the front of the building, the after end of the rafters resting against the side of the cliff.

I noticed, too, that, although the rafters extended as high as the top of our prison, they did not cov............