Before the hut, as I have said, and hiding it, but only partially hiding it, as I found afterwards, from one of the paths across the Swamp, was a clump of bushes, with a tall pyramidal cedar or two rising up in the midst. I dare say, in the confusion of objects, the trees, the bushes, the green and yellow leaves, the fallen trunks, cast in every wild variety of attitude; the plashy ground, and here and there a higher piece of sandy bank with gray and yellow surfaces, thousands of people might pass along that way without a suspicion that any cabin was near. Still it was not fully concealed; and afterwards, when I passed along that very path, knowing where it lay, I could clearly distinguish the lines of the little gable with its thatch. I listened eagerly, and the sounds grew more and more distinct--horses' feet beating hard and fast, and people talking. A minute after I could discern the party through the branches--three white men on horseback, and a stout young negro. They were bidden again; but in another moment I saw them more distinctly, and I recognized Robert Thornton and his father. The other white man's appearance was somewhat familiar to me, but I could not remember where I had seen him before. It was that of the man, Matthew Leary, who had accompanied Robert Thornton when first I encountered him, and whom Billy Byles had described "as a man who would sell his own father, if he could find any man to buy him." They passed on behind the clump of bushes, right in front; and, thinking them gone, I was turning to wake Bessy, in order that we might find the horses, which I could perceive nowhere in the neighbourhood, and then proceed across the Swamp as fast as possible. Suddenly, however, I was stopped by the sound of voices again quite near. I put my eye to the chink, which I had nearly closed; and, somewhat to my consternation, beheld the whole party before the hut. "Why, I told you so!" cried old Mr. Thornton. "It is a cabin by ----. Who the devil built it here, I wonder?" "Well, come along, come along, father!" cried Robert Thornton, in an impatient and even angry tone; "if you dawdle on in this way, we shall miss our mark entirely. You can come back and see all about this when we have got her off. I tell you, if they catch hold of her, and bring her back, we are ruined." He muttered something about an old fool; and his tender father called somebody a d--d jackanapes. But the old man seemed habitually under the control of his worthy son, and he rode on in the end, though apparently very unwillingly.