end ten miles from yere."

While talking the pair had moved across the road, and now Deck turned
his prisoner in the direction of the clearing. Soon they came in sight
of General, Clinker, and one other of the slaves.

"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