CHAPTER XVII

Sleep overcame Tad at last, but when it did it was a strange, restless slumber, full of dreams.

He seemed to be running, leaden-footed, down the bed of an interminable brook, where at every step the deep, black mud sucked horribly at his heels. He struggled forward, his heart almost bursting with effort, and always behind him he could hear the fierce, wild baying of dogs.

The black swamp grew firmer about him, and there in the surface of the mud he saw a huge track, broad, misshapen, with a great toe that looked half like a thumb. And suddenly the cry of the hounds ended in a whimper, and he was fleeing from a pack of huge black stooping shapes that ran through the woods on their hind legs--more silent--more terrible than dogs.

He rushed on, stumbled, tried to get up, and found that all the strength had run out of his body. His pursuers were close upon him now, enormous in the dark, their long arms stretched to seize him. He tried to cry out, but no sound would come from his throat. Then through the fringes of his dream he heard Poke give a frightened squeal that turned into a growl, and there was a low, startled oath somewhere close by. And suddenly Tad found himself awake.

He was sitting upright on his blanket in the flatboat, clutching what he realized was the handle of the ax. Above him, black against the red glow of the fire, loomed a vast ape-like figure, and there were half a dozen others moving on the levee and in the boat. He found his voice, then.

“Abe--Allen!” he screamed, and bounded back against the gunwale, lifting the ax as he rose. One swift blow, shortened and cramped by his position, was all he had time to deliver. Then his adversary was upon him with great, smothering paws that gripped his wrists and almost cracked the bones. The ax dropped from his hand, but he continued to struggle, kicking, twisting, fighting for time. And when he looked up he saw the moon flash on the white, grinning teeth of Congo, the deaf-mute.

There was a roar and a crash in the fore part of the boat. Abe was in the fight. He had laid hold of a four-foot oak log and was swinging it at the end of his long, powerful arms like a cudgel. “Allen, bring the guns!” he yelled, and leaped forward, tiger-like, upon the attackers.

Two of them went down under his rain of blows. Three others closed on him savagely, striking with fists and knives, and for a second Tad could see only a struggling tangle of bodies on the landing. Then Abe rolled free and bounded to his feet once more. He was still swinging the great club, and he put all his sinewy young strength into every smashing blow. His wrath was terrible to see. Never in his life had he fought as he was fighting now. The black marauders broke and fled, stumbling, before that onslaught, and Abe followed, giving them no quarter.

All these events had taken place in the space of a few seconds. Still gripping Tad by the wrists, Congo had watched the swift, decisive battle between his confederates and the tall white boy. As they gave ground, he bared his teeth in a hideous snarl of fury. But he had his own work to do. The instant the landing was clear, the giant African seized Tad about the middle, swung him up under one huge arm, and sprang for the shoreward side of the boat. Locked in a death struggle with still another negro, Allen could give him no assistance. The boy caught at the gunwale as they went up, and clinging desperately with hands and feet, held his captor back for a second or two. Then his grip was wrenched loose, and the big black scaled the landing and started with him across the levee.

They were almost in the edge of the cane when Tad heard a thud of feet behind them. With a hoarse indrawing of breath, Congo turned at bay. Still clutching his prisoner with his left hand, the deaf-mute raised his tremendous right arm to demolish the pursuer.

It must have been a long time before he used that arm again. Abe, coming in on the run, struck downward swiftly, savagely, with the great oak cudgel. Under that crushing impact the bones parted with a dull crack, and Congo staggered, dropped Tad, and scuttled into the cane, the broken arm dangling horribly at his side.

The breath had been squeezed half out of the boy, but as he rose he managed to gasp “Allen!” and pushed Abe in the direction of the boat.

Allen, it seemed, had taken care of himself. He had been getting the better of the encounter when his antagonist had seen the others in flight and had jumped overboard and swum for it.

One half-naked black still lay on the levee, moaning piteously. He had fallen a victim to Abe’s first attack, and there was an ugly bruise on his head. The fire went out of the big backwoodsman’s eye as he came to the side of the wounded negro. Stooping, he carried him to the landing, washed his broken crown, and wrapped about his head a bandage made of a piece of his own torn shirt.

Gradually the man returned to full consciousness, and his groaning was quieted.

“We-all b’longs on de plantation above yere,” he said, in response to Abe’s questioning. “A white man done promise he gwine git us free if we he’p dat Congo nigger ketch de young white boy.”

Abe looked at him grimly. “Kin you walk?” he said. The darky got painfully to his feet and stood looking at the tall young Hoosier in a palsy of terror.

“What we’d ought to do is tie ye up an’ take ye on down to N’Orleans to jail,” said Abe. “But in this fersaken country I s’pose they’d skin ye alive, down thar, an’ that don’t seem hardly fair, either. Go on--march yerself back whar ye belong, an’ git thar quick, ’fore they find out ye’re gone.”

For a moment the negro stared at him, goggle-eyed with wonder. Then he was off, running up the levee as fast as his shaky legs could take him.

“Wal,” said Allen, feeling of a barked elbow, “I reckon none of us is very sleepy right now.” He went to the fire and threw on dry wood, poking it till a bright blaze sprang up. “Great wallopin’ catamounts, Abe, but you sartin did give ’em what-for!” he chuckled. “Next time you aim to start a ruckus like that, I want to be sure I’m on your side.”

The big youngster ambled into the circle of firelight. “You know me better’n that, Allen,” he grinned. “You never saw me _start_ a fight in my life. But I figger when you do have to defend yerself, it pays to go after the other feller hard enough to put the fear o’ the Lord in him.”

He turned to the boy by his side. “How about ye, Tad--all right?”

“Fine,” said Tad, “but say--how about yourself?” He seized his big friend by the arm and swung him half around in the firelight. “Didn’t you know you were bleeding?”

Abe put up a hand to his face and brought it away red and dripping. A deep gash over his right eye was bathing the side of his head and neck with blood.

“Huh!” he laughed, “I didn’t even know I had that one. I’ve been thinkin’ all this time it was sweat I was tastin’. Must ha’ got cut with a knife in that fracas with the three of ’em, here on the landin’.”

He went down to the river and dipped his head in the water, after which Tad applied a tight bandage, and the bleeding soon stopped.

“Wal,” said Allen, “I don’t reckon they’ll be back, but I ain’t sleepy enough to turn in jest yet. What say we mosey along a few miles?”

“Suits me,” Abe replied, “only before we go thar’s one thing I want to look at.”

He selected a fat pine knot from the fire, and holding it as a torch to light his steps, walked slowly back to the edge of the cane, where Congo had vanished. They saw him stoop as if searching for something. Then he called to them. Looking where he pointed in the soft black earth, they saw a track--deep, gigantic, splay-toed--the same footprint that had puzzled them that morning.

“That’s the feller,” said Abe. “You’ve seen him before, I reckon, Tad. Wasn’t that Murrell’s nigger?”

“Yes,” said Tad, “he must have followed us all the way down from Natchez.”

“But how in time did he keep up with us?” asked Abe. “He couldn’t ha’ been aboard of a boat, could he?”

Tad told them of the canoe he had glimpsed, stealing between the islands when Abe was making his oar.

The big flatboatman nodded. “That was him, right enough,” he said. “Only next time, Tad, don’t be scairt to come right out with what you think. We might have saved ourselves a heap of exercise tonight if we’d known they was layin’ for us.”

“Wonder if he planned to paddle clear back to Natchez with Tad in the dugout,” said Allen as they went back across the levee.

“No,” Abe answered, thoughtfully. “I b’lieve it was three of Murrell’s gang that I saw gallopin’ down the bluff road that afternoon. Most likely they’re waitin’ somewhere close, maybe in Baton Rouge, fer this tongueless, earless devil to bring Tad in. Let’s drift along.”

They put out their fire, went aboard the broadhorn, and cast off the mooring-lines, glad to see the last of Madame Duquesne’s plantation.