"Be my sowl, this isn't," said Dinny, shaking himself free, and seizing the side of the boat he began to wade and thrust her from the shore. "In with you too." Bart said no more, but followed the Irishman's example, and together they waded on into the muddy creek, only to get a few yards from the shore, as with a furious rush the dogs crushed through the canes and reeds, to stop, breast-deep, barking savagely. "Purty creatures!" whispered Dinny. "Sure, and we musn't get in yet, or, if we do, it must be together. Push her out." "Halt, there!" cried a loud voice, suddenly. "I have you. Down, dogs! Do you hear! Halt!" "Kape on," whispered Dinny. "Make ready!" cried the same voice. "Present! Will you surrender?" "Lie down, me darlins," whispered Dinny. "Divil a bit can they see where to shoot." "Fire!" cried the same voice, and a dozen flashes of light blazed out of the cane-brake. There was a roar that seemed deafening, and the darkness was once more opaque. "Anybody hit?" whispered Dinny. "Silence gives consint," he added to himself. "Push along, and as soon as it's deep enough we'll get in. Ugh! bedad, it's up to me chin all at wanst," he muttered. "Can you give a boy a hand?" A hand caught his wrist, and he was helped over the stern of the boat, dripping and panting, as Bart scrambled in simultaneously, and though the little vessel threatened to overset, it held firm. Then another volley was fired, for the bullets to go bursting through the canes, but over the fugitives' heads, and once more darkness reigned over the hurried buzz of voices and the furious baying of the dogs. Order after order came from the soft marshy land at the edge of the creek, mingled with shouts at the dogs, which were now loose, and barking and yelping as they ran here and there at the side of the water, where their splashing could be heard by those in the boat, which was being propelled slowly and cautiously by Mary, who knelt in the prow and thrust a pole she carried down in the mud. The baying of the dogs as they kept making rushes through the canes gave the pursuers some clue as to where the fugitives would be; and from time to time, after a command given to the escaping men to surrender, a volley was fired, the bright flashes from the muskets cutting the darkness, and showing where their danger lay. It was slow work for both parties, the pursuers having to force their way painfully through the tangled growth, while the heavily-laden boat had to be propelled through what was in places little more than liquid mud full of fibrous vegetation, and what had been but a light task to Mary when she was alone, proved to be almost beyond her strength with so heavy a load. "Are you going right?" whispered Abel at last, for they were hardly moving, and it seemed to him that they were running right in among the growth that whispered and creaked against the boat. "Yes; be patient," was the stern reply.