While he was speaking two of the bloodhounds leaped from the bank and came toward them, swerving not an inch before the threatening clubs. Mobile stepped to the edge of the water and stood poised to strike, his crazed eyes glaring at one of the swimming dogs, the features of his face quivering with spasms of pain and exhaustion. Then the hickory descended, and the immense dog sank under the water with a startled grunt. Mobile and Pap both ministered to the other bloodhound which followed its mate to the bottom of the bayou. Then the whole pack, deer-dogs, fox-hounds, hog-dogs, and mongrels, making the swamp hideous with their howls and yelps, sprang into the stream. The three negroes ran up and down the bank of the stream, striking with weary arms, kicking with feet as heavy as lead, sobbing, praying, cursing, raving--adding their insane voices to the noise of the hounds, making pandemonium of the silent, shadowy swamp. At last the hound-pack, wearied by swimming and unable to effect a landing, turned back to the opposite shore in defeat. “Saved!” Mobile sobbed. “Now, niggers, trot down this here bayou till we git to de public road!” Ten minutes later, they fell in the dust of the public highway like monstrous worms or rather like raw, skinned cattle divested of their hides and their carcasses left as food for the carrion crows. For a few minutes they were motionless, lying like dead men; then a consciousness of approaching danger roused them to renew their flight. Rising totteringly to their feet, they breathed deeply, and started. Then all hope died. From out of the high weeds on the side of the road, a deep-seamed, weather-tanned Spanish face appeared, and two fearless eyes held the gaze of the helpless negroes like a hypnotist. “You niggers stop right there!” a quiet voice said. It was Sheriff Ulloa, who knew the route of fugitive criminals, and had taken the precaution to guard the only outlet from the Massacre Swamp. “Please, suh, boss, save us,” the negroes sobbed in a chorus. “All right,” the sheriff said grimly. “Trot right down the center of this road and go back to the jail you got out of.” VII “GON’ER GIT THEM NIGGERS!” Just at noon the three negroes stumbled through the door of the jail, and like men walking in their sleep, obeyed the command of the sheriff and climbed the steps to the second story. There they fell to the floor and sank into unconsciousness. The sheriff closed the jail door and sat down on the steps in front, where he gave himself up to most serious thought. Almost an hour later he arose, reëntered the jail, and returning to his three prisoners picked out Mobile Boone and kicked him into wakefulness. “Get up, Mobile,” he commanded. “Follow me downstairs.” Dumbly, the negro obeyed. On the ground floor the sheriff stopped and spoke: “Mobile, what are you in here for?” “I got drunk in de Chicken-Wing an’ tried to claw a nigger’s nose off.” “Were you arrested with those other two negroes?”