in Rodney. "I am
not much of a chopper, but perhaps I can get up an appetite for
breakfast."

So saying he went out into the wood yard and caught up an axe. His
object was not to get up an appetite (being in the best of health he
always had that), but to place himself where he could see his old
schoolmate when he was brought out of his prison. He would have given
something handsome if he could have had a chance to ask Tom what his
object was in staying in that corn-crib after he had been provided with
the means of getting out, and a revolver with which to defend himself,
but was obliged to content himself with the reflection that he had done
all he could, and that if Tom wanted help he would have to look for it
somewhere else.

"I wonder if he thinks the Union men at Pilot Knob will rescue him when
he is brought there?" thought Rodney, as he swung the axe in the air.
"If he is depending upon them, why did he run away from the settlement
in the first place? What was the reason he--"

Rodney, who had kept one eye on Nels, paused with his axe suspended in
the air and looked at the corn-crib. He saw the man throw down the bar
and open the door, and heard him when he shouted:

"Come out of that and pay your lodging. We can't afford to keep a free
hotel when bacon is getting so scarce that we can't even steal it. Out
you come."

[Illustration: AN ASTONISHING DISCOVERY.]

Rodney listened but did not hear any answer. Neither did Nels. The
latter bent forward, stretched out his neck and seemed to be intently
regarding something on the inside of the cabin. Then he straightened up
and marched in with a vicious air, as if he was resolved that he would
not stand any more fooling. He was gone not more than a minute, and then
he came back with a jump and a whoop, holding Jeff's tattered blanket in
one hand and a pair of well-worn boots in the other.

"Wake snakes!" yelled Nels, striking up a war-dance and frantically
flourishing the captured articles over his head. "He's skipped, that
hoss-thief has! He's lit out, I tell ye!"

Almost at the same moment the wood-cutter who had gone out to attend to
the stock appeared at the door of the stable and called out to Rodney:

"Say, you Louisanner fellar, where's your critter?" And then he stopped
and looked at Nels. "Do you say the prisoner has lit out?" he shouted.
"Then he's done took another hoss to holp him on his way."

"If he has taken mine he has got the best horse in the S