"You'll answer whether I put the question civilly or not," cried the fellow, raising his whip and spurring his horse on towards Dan, on which I brought my rifle to bear on the man, exclaiming-- "If you touch my brother, I'll shoot you, as sure as you're a living man." On this he pulled in his rein, while his companion, bursting into a loud laugh, exclaimed-- "These young cocks crow loudly! I say, youngsters, who is your father? he must be a smart fellow to own such a pair of bantlings." "Our father is Captain Loraine who lives at Uphill, and he's not the person to stand nonsense from you or any other man like you!" exclaimed Dan, whose Irish temper had risen almost to boiling pitch. The strangers, seeing that they could not get much change out of us, rode on; the last man who had spoken bantering his companion on their defeat. I saw the other turn his head several times as though not quite sure that we should not fire after him. "I am glad they didn't come upon our camp this morning, although as they have no blood-hounds with them, we might have managed to conceal the negro without having had resort to force," I remarked. "But we should have had to tell lies if they had put questions to us, or have given him up or fought for him," observed Dan. "Still better reason why we should be thankful that they did not find us," I answered. We were so excited by what had occurred that we slackened our speed for a considerable way. We were still several miles from home when night overtook us; we had therefore again to camp out. We did not mind this, but we were anxious to get to the farm, to send assistance to our tutor and the poor black. According to our usual plan, we built a shanty, lighted a fire, and one of us sat up to keep the latter blazing. We heard strange sounds during the night, which kept us wakeful, and during my watch I caught sight of a bear, though the fire made him keep at a respectful distance. After surveying us for a few minutes, and not discovering any tempting odour, he slunk away, convinced that he would gain nothing by paying us a visit. When I roused up Dan, I told him to keep a look-out, lest bruin should come back, and lay down to snatch a short sleep, expecting to be roused up again before long. Dan, however, saw nothing during his watch to induce him to call me, so I had my sleep out. I was awakened by feeling him shaking my shoulder. "It is near morning, Mike, I think," he said; "I suspect that I must have nodded, for the fire is lower than it should be, but I have thrown on some sticks and it will soon be blazing up again."