are you? Wait till
morning, and get some breakfast."

"It's a nice breakfast you'd give us in the morning," laughed Watson, with
a significant look at their host. "A halter stew, or some roast bullets, I
guess!"

Hare jumped backward with such suddenness that he almost knocked into the
fire his frightened wife who had been standing directly behind him. "What
do you mean?" he hissed.

"You know perfectly well what I mean, Mr. Hare," said Watson, looking him
straight in the face, whilst the other spectators listened in breathless
interest. "You have sent word to the Jasper Vigilants to ride over here
and arrest us, on the suspicion of being spies."

Had the heavens suddenly fallen, the countenances of the Hares could not
have shown more dismay.

"How did you find that out?" asked the farmer, quite forgetting to play
his part of amiable host.

"Never mind how," cried George, who was burning to play his part. "Only
it's a pity you haven't as much mercy in you as your wife has."

"Listen," said Watson, as he motioned the others in the room to be silent.
"George, you will watch this old negress, and if she attempts to make a
sound, or to leave the room before we are ready, give her a hint from your
revolver."

With a scream of fright, comical in its intensity, the "aunty" sank back
on her stool near the hearth, and covered her dark face with her hands.
There she sat, as if she expected to be murdered at any moment.

"And you, Macgreggor," continued Watson impressively, "will keep the same
sort of watch over Mrs. Hare. Happen what may, there is not to be a sound
from either woman."

Mrs. Hare started in confusion. Her husband made a bound for the kitchen
door. With another bound no less quick Watson darted forward, caught the
farmer, pushed him back at the point of the pistol, and bolted the door.

"What do you want to do?" demanded Hare. "Are we to be murdered?"

"No," cried Watson, "but----"

Then there came the sound of horses' hoofs in the distance. Every one
listened eagerly, and none more so than the farmer.

"You're done for," he said slowly, casting a half-malevolent,
half-triumphant glance at the three Northerners.

"Not by a great deal," said Watson. "March with me to the parlor, open the
front door just a crack, and, when the Vigilants come up, say to them that
we three men have escaped from the house, stolen a flatboat, and started
to row across the Tennessee River. Send them away and shut the do